

EoA , Tl^^.ISC 


CoBTightF. 


0CPH?IGHT ^ a/ 

i(] 



* 





JIM MORSE 
SOUTH SEA TRADER 














r, ... * 

t 7 * "* ■ * ^ ^ 

rr*'... ^ V T • • 


UkA' i<Art f ' ^;- 

Mftw •-■• W?‘ i,*- '1 1 ^ ' 


JOl ' 

' ,f' ij- , , ’^. .- 










'>J ^ 

-r '^if ■^•* 'a« # * • " i^fll 


t. 


• * i ► ^* ' 

»- i- ...I . . \ 




li. 


<• • 


yr 


.'V * 



The rifle cracked, and the skipper gave a groan and slumped 
forward, releasing the steering-oar. See page 206 



JIM MORSE 
SOUTH SEA TRADER 


BY 

J. ALLAN DUNN 


ILLUSTRATED 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1918, 1919 

Bt the boy scouts of AMERICA ' 
Copyright, 1919, 

By small, MAWARD & COMPANY 

(mCOEPOEATED) 



SEP 24 1919^ 

©CI.A52993a‘^ 

J^ccorded 


DEDICATED TO 
MY SON 

J. ALLAN DUNN, JUNIOR 


4 




\ 








CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I Alone on Lele Motu i 

II The Melanesians Come .... 17 

III The Pearls of Tia Rau 32 

IV The Race for Tia Rau 47 

V The Lost Galleon ...... 65 

VI The Miter-Mountain ..... 76 

VII Kidnapped 85 

VIII Four and Twenty Blackbirds . . . 104 

IX The Admiral AND Trouble . . . .117 

X Jim Lands the Blackbirds . . . .130 

XI The Graven Image 149 

XII The Island of Huareva 156 

XIII At the Temple . 166 

XIV The Widow’s Mite 181 

XV The Pearl Poachers 194 

XVI A Stern Chase 209 

XVII The Manuwai Strikes a Gale . . . 218 

XVIII Jim, a Life Saver 228 



/ 


c 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The rifle cracked, and the skipper gave a groan 
and slumped forward, releasing the steering- 
oar. See page 206 .... Frontispiece 

PAGE 

They surged forward. Spears streaked towards 
Jim, and two stuck quivering in the jamb of 
the door 28 

The great seas, hissing and cresting, surged up 
before his eyes, racing in, bearing them like a 
cork in a mill race. See page 8 . . . 106 

Behind the gigantic chief stalked a tall, lean 
man, with the face of a hawk, his frame be- 
dizened with feathers, with bones, with teeth . 172 




I 


JIM MORSE 
SOUTH SEA TRADER 



JIM MORSE, 
SOUTH SEA TRADER 


CHAPTER I 

ALONE ON LELE MOTU 

Jim Morse stood by the rail in the shadow of 
the mainsail, gazing impatiently at the plumy 
palm-tops sharply defined against the horizon. 
For six days the schooner had been within ten 
miles of the atoll, near enough at times to pick 
out the buildings against the verdure behind the 
shining beach, and then the westerly current 
had set them back again to leeward. The 
schooner rolled to the ground-swell with slat- 
ting canvas, the creak of slack tackle and the 
constant rat-tat of reef points. An escadrille 
of flying fish, mailed in azure and silver, flashed 
up from the peacock-blue, glassy sea and vol- 
planed desperately to escape chasing dolphins. 


2 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Jim walked aft to where the skipper stood 
in loin-cloth and cotton undershirt, one great, 
hairy hand on the idle wheel. Captain Burr 
had only one eye, but the single orb held a 
kindly spark and now it winked cheerily at 
the, slim, sunburned lad. 

'"Cheer-o!’’ said the skipper. ‘It's plumb 
exasperatin' but you git used to it. And 
there's wind cornin'. See them feather clouds 
behind the island ? Wind's there, and we’ll get 
a squall inside of an hour. Better take in the 
Admiral." 

Jim reached up to where a brass cage, partly 
screened with a scrap of canvas, hung from 
the preventer-stay by a seizing of marlin. Its 
sleepy occupant, a parrot gaudy in green and 
gold and crimson, protested. 

*'Look outr he screamed. ''Mind your 
helm, you son of a swab, you'll sink the bloomin' 
ship!" 

Jim laughed, as he set the cage on deck, and 
put his forefinger between the bars. The Ad- 
miral sidled forward threateningly with open 


Alone on Lele Motu 


3 


beak, but took the finger gently, caressing it 
with a leathery tongue while he shifted scaly 
feet in ecstasy as Jim scratched his poll. 

^'Took a fancy to you, has the Admiral,’’ said 
Burr. ^^He ain’t what you’d call a friendly 
character, as a rule.” 

The skipper shoved one knee between the 
spokes and refilled his pipe, nodding at Jim. 
Then, for the fortieth time, he went over Jim’s 
appearance aboard the Mamiwai. 

''Your paw dies and you takes what’s left, 
which ain’t a heap,” recapitulated Burr, ob- 
serving Jim with a lively appreciation. "You 
makes up your mind to join your uncle. So 
you comes to Tahiti in a steamer, and you finds 
me and offers to buy passage to Lele Motu. 
And me, seein’ as I trade with your Uncle 
Dan’l, I says, after sizin’ of you up a bit, 'sup- 
pose you come along and work your passage,’ 
says I, thinkin’ you’d be handy and also com- 
p’ny, me shippin’ only native boys. And com- 
p’ny you been, and handy you been. You takes 
to the sea like — like a fresh herrin’. More’n 


4 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

that, you can cook. More’n that, you plays the 
mouth-organ like a — like a bloomin’ sirene !” 

Jim flushed under his tan. He liked the 
praise, but it made him feel awkward. 

''You’ve done a heap for me,” he said. 
"Here you’ve lost a week trying to make the 
island, and you said you generally only call 
there on the back trip.” The skipper sent a 
ring of smoke into the still air, watching it 
critically. 

"Time, once you get south of Capricorn,” he 
said, oracularly, "don’t as a rule amount to a 
hill of beans. It’s like the wash in the scup- 
pers, comes an’ goes an’ you never notice it. 
Now what was it put it in your head to come 
way out here to your uncle?” 

And, for the fortieth time, Jim patiently 
answered: "He used to write once in a while 
and send shells and curios. And once he came 
up to San Francisco to buy a sloop. He 
brought my mother some seed pearls, and he 
told me about the islands and said he thought 
I’d like to live there. And that I was welcome 


Alone on Lele Motu 5 

to make a trip some time. And I used to see 
the ships sailing in and out of the Golden Gate, 
and rd go down to the wharves pretty often. 
So, when father died, mother being dead too. 
Uncle Daniel was all I had left. I didn’t want 
to go to work in an office, somehow. I knew 
Uncle Dan came up by way of Tahiti, and I 
remembered about you — he described you to 
me, you know. . . 

'‘Said I was a one-eyed old pirate, I 
suppose,” chuckled the skipper. "Go on, 
son.” 

"Well, I had the money and . 1 

"You had the salt in your blood, thet’s the 
long and short of it,” said Burr. "Didn’t I 
get sick of canning ’tater bugs and skip to sea ? 
An’ . . . here comes the squall! If the surf 
ain’t too heavy, you’ll be sayin’ howdy to your 
Uncle Dan’l before sundown. Hey, you Tomi, 
you Lui, you walk along mainsheet, foresheet 1 
Jim, you tend jib an’ staysail, will ye?” 

Jim jumped forward, proud of his seaman- 


6 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

ship, eager to reach his goal. He had been 
two months on the way, counting the wait for 
Burr’s schooner to arrive and refit, not count- 
ing the six days they had wallowed in the grip 
of the current. Inactivity had brought dis- 
turbing doubts as to his welcome, and now ac- 
tion banished them as he in-hauled the headsail 
sheets. Then the Manuwai heeled to the sud- 
den squall that bowed the distant palms and 
broomed the water towards them from the 
land. The surge hissed about the bows and 
spread far in the wake as the little coral isle 
rose from the sea, silhouetted against a sky 
already marshaling radiance for a tropic sun- 
set. 

The skipper brought the Manuwai so close 
that Jim saw the reef lying submerged like a 
pearly shadow in the blue, showing now and 
then the white flash of an upthrust fang as a 
wave rolled back. Beyond was the lagoon, 
translucent emerald, in sharp distinction to the 
deeper sea. Then the beach, silent, deserted. 


Alone on Lele Moty, 


7 

the copra-shed and dwelling, all without a sign 
of life. 

'^That's queer,’’ said Burr, as the schooner 
glided parallel to the coral barrier. ‘'I don’t 
see no whaleboat, neither. I wonder . . . ?” 

He broke off and rapped out a sharp order to 
his crew, as he brought the schooner into the 
wind. They lowered and smothered the main- 
sail. Kalua, the Rarotonga bo’sun, took over 
the wheel ; the three remaining natives lowered 
the double-ended surfboat. 

‘‘You think there’s something wrong?” 
asked Jim, visioning disappointment with a 
dry throat. His uncle might have left the is- 
land. He might be sick. 

“I guess not,” answered Burr. “There’s 
some sort of paper on the door of the copra- 
shed. Tumble into the bows there!” Jim 
leaped nimbly, and the skipper dropped lightly 
into the stern, fitting the sixteen-foot steering 
oar into the notch, while two kanakas pulled 
sturdily at the oars and sent the shapely boat 


8 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

dancing towards the reef. Jim looked in vain 
for the expected opening in the line of curling 
breakers, plunging shoreward and toppling 
with a roar on the coral. 

‘Where's the passage?" he called out. 
Burr winked back at him and grinned. 

“None to this reef. We jump it," he 
answered. 

It looked perilous to Jim, but he said nothing 
as he clutched the gunwale on either side of 
him. The great seas, hissing and cresting, 
surged up before his eyes, racing in, bearing 
them on like a cork in a mill-race. The cheery 
natives showed their teeth in a reassuring 
smile. At a shout from the skipper they 
backed water, and the breaker lunged under 
and past them. Another followed, steep- 
sloped, up-curling. 

“Now," yelled the skipper. “Haf/" The 
brown boys dug in their blades. Poised just 
ahead of the white mane of the wave, they to- 
bogganed swiftly. There was a smother of 


Alone on Lele Motu 


9 

iridescent foam and spray to right and left, a 
bump, a scrape, and they were in the smooth 
lagoon. 

‘"Gee!” cried Jim in the excitement of the 
moment. '"Some hurdling!” 

Next moment the keel grated on the crisp 
beach. Jim sprang out, followed by the skip- 
per, and they walked up the white slope of 
wave-pounded coral to the shed where the co- 
coanut-meat was stored against shipment. A 
square of paper tacked to the padlocked door 
bore a brief inscription : 

Thursday, October lo. 

Gone to Tia Kau. Back 
in a week. Dan Morse. 

‘"Humph!” ejaculated the skipper, scratch- 
ing at his beard. “Back in a week? And this 
is the sixteenth.” He looked uncertainly at 
Jim. 

“Then he'll be back to-morrow,” said Jim. 
He was disappointed and yet relieved. He 
would have a chance to look about the place. 


lo Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

He would be, in a way, already established and 
at home when his uncle returned. ‘'Where is 
Tia Kau?’’ he asked. 

“It’s a reef nigh three hundred miles from 
here,” said Burr, cocking his eye to where the 
two natives were bringing up Jim’s chest. 
“Jest a lagoon inside of a nasty reef where 
more’n one ship has piled up. You can’t see 
it nights nor when the sea runs high. It’ll be 
an atoll some day, after the coral bugs get 
through buildin’ and a cocopalm with nuts on 
it floats ashore. Likely place for shell an’ 
pearls, you see. Virgin. I’ve figgered some 
on tryin’ it myself. Thet’s what your Uncle 
Dan’s after, in his big whaleboat.” 

Jim’s prompt imagination conjured up a pic- 
ture of his uncle returning with gleaming 
mother-of-pearl and milky pearls. They must 
have just missed him. He might have gone 
along. Then another thought came. 

“You said it was dangerous?” he queried. 

“Not for them that knows it,” said the skip- 


Alone on Lele Motu 


II 


per. ''Your unple’s no fool. The point is, 
what to do with you ? That 'week' is kind of 
uncertain." 

"Til stay here, of course," said Jim. The 
prospect of going it alone for a day or two was 
alluring. "You've waited long enough. I'll 
be all right." 

"You'll be safe enough, I reckon," said Burr. 
"Only . . . ? See here, Jim, your uncle might 
be a week overtime, two, if this weather holds, 
three, if the lagoon pans out. He'll have taken 
grub and water on chance. Suppose you come 
along with me? I'll be back in a month. You 
can leave a note for him. I'll be glad of your 
comp'ny. If ever any reason comes up for 
your not hitching with your uncle. I'd be glad 
to have you right along, on pay an' share. 
What do you say?" 

But Jim's mind was made up. He was 
barely sixteen, but he had developed a faculty 
for holding to his resolutions. And the rea- 
sons were compelling ones. The prospect of 


12 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

being absolutely alone on a palm island in mid- 
Pacific was irresistible. He had reached his 
goal. To go away, to be absent when his yncle 
came back, somehow that did not seem jco be 
playing the game. One thing bothered him a 
little. 

‘Why shouldn’t I get along with my uncle ?” 
he asked. The skipper scratched away at his 
beard, apparently re-reading the notice on the 
door. 

“Oh, no reason in partickler,” he said. “It 
might happen. Your uncle is an easy man to 
get along with, as a rule. He has his streaks. 
I reckon I was speakin’ mostly for myself. 
Pm gettin’ on a bit. I like my snooze oftener 
than I did. An’ the island-fever grips me 
kind of hard once in a while. I’d like another 
white man along to help keep an eye on things.” 

Jim thrilled to the flattery. He was rated 
as a man. He was conscious that he had 
cleaned up his share of the work aboard in 
ship-shape fashion, but it was good to hear it. 


Alone on Lele Motu 


13 


He was also conscious that the skipper had 
been a trifle evasive about the '^streaks'' of his 
Uncle Dan's nature. But he dismissed that. 

shall stay," he said. ^'I'd like to be here 
when he gets back. There's water here, isn't 
there? And I've got my fishing tackle." 

‘‘A fine spring. I'll show it to ye before we 
go. You can live like a lord. Coco-crabs, 
roasted turtle eggs, turtle soup and turtle 
steak, green cocoanuts; there'll be taro and 
yams in the clearing, baked bread-fruit, wild 
oranges, bananas, fresh oysters, all kinds of 
fish. A reg'lar picnic. An' plenty stores in 
the house. Let's go find the key. 

‘'You see," the skipper went on as they 
walked up to the house of wooden walls and 
corrugated iron roof, “your uncle is a sort of 
clearin'-house for the scatterin' atolls round 
about. This island of Lele Motu is the port 
of call. The rest of 'em bring over their copra 
and hawkbill turtle an’ their pearl shell for 
him to hold in the copra-shed agin my coming. 


14 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

He does all the tradin’. Thet’s why his hhuse 
is so big. It’s part store. Thet’s why hi left 
the notice on the door, case any of ’em should 
happen over for trade goods. Copra ain’t 
dried yet. But he thought they might come, or 
he wouldn’t have left any note at all. Written 
in English, too. He’ll have left the key some- 
wheres handy. Ah !” 

Chalked in blue on the house door were the 
words : 

Key in kitchen kettle. 

^‘None of the native boys can read, you see,” 
said Captain Burr. ^'An’ there ain’t apt to be 
any tramps an’ strangers about.” He laughed 
as they went around the house to a lean-to, a 
grass roof supported on poles between which 
dried pandanus leaves were loosely braided for 
screens. Here was a small iron stove with a 
kettle on it, a table and two soapboxes that 
evidently served as chairs. The skipper took 
the key from the empty kettle and opened the 


Alone on Lele Motu 15 

front door. There were two rooms. The 
smaller was furnished with native mats, a low 
bed, a table with a red cloth, two bona-fide 
chairs, some prints from illustrated papers on 
one wall, on the others native weapons from 
which hung strings of gay shells and berry- 
beads. The larger was the store with a 
counter backed by rows of shelves on which 
were bolts of cotton print, and brightly labeled 
cans. Barrels and boxes stood in the corners. 

The skipper handed Jim the key. 

'T don’t suppose anyone’ll come along, but 
they might. You can play storekeeper.” 

'‘How about natives?” asked Jim. 

" ’Tain’t likely any’ll bother you. You 
know how to handle ’em. ’Tain’t as if you 
was in the Solomons, now. They’re all 
friendly in the Low Archipelago. Anywhere 
one white man is worth a dozen of ’em.” 

"Just why?” asked Jim. 

"Why?” asked Burr, giving the question 
serious thought for a moment. "Speakin’ off- 


i6 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

hand, Fd say because a white man has imagina- 
tion and uses it. He’s always a jump or two 
ahead of a native. They think on impulse. 
You can bluff ’em. They never know what a 
white man has up his sleeve. Their minds flip 
about like a fish in the bottom of a boat. A 
white man makes up his to one thing and stays 
with it. And the white man quits tryin. 
That last is the meat of it, I reckon. Well, if 
you stay. I’ll not lose this wind. You ain’t 
goin’ to be lonely?” 

‘'Not me,” said Jim. “It’s all too new.” 
He itched to go exploring before sundown. 
He was going to sleep out under the palms. 
He was going to look for turtle eggs and get 
some cocoanuts and make a fire in the open. 
It was going to be ripping fun, as soon as the 
schooner left. The skipper’s eye twinkled as 
if he understood. 

“Well, Robinson Crusoe,” he said, “I’ll be 
off. I’ll be back in six weeks anyway. All 
right, Billi-boy, we go along ship now.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE MELANESIANS COME 

Jim watched the whaleboat make for the 
reef. This time the native boys waited for an 
incoming roller to break. Then they sprang 
overboard to a footing on the reef ^ Shoved out 
the boat in the back-wash and leaped aboard 
again. Jim saw them struggling up the blue 
neck of the next rearing sea monster, over the 
crest, with the stern out of the water for half 
the length of the keel, and off on the dancing 
waves to the schooner. But they did not make 
fast. Billi-boy went up the side and handed 
down something. Once more the boat came 
back, hurdling the coral and on to the beach. 

''Hi, Mr. Crusoe,'^ said the skipper. "Rob- 
inson has to have a parrot. There ain't any 
on Lele Motu. Pm loanin' ye the Admiral." 
17 


1 8 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

He thrust the cage into Jim’s hands. Back 
went the whaleboat to be tackled smartly to the 
falls and hoisted inboard as the schooner paid 
off, and the Manuwai went bowling off before 
the breeze, her mainsail swinging up to the 
sturdy pull of her crew. The Admiral 
shrieked a farewell. 

^^Tend your helm! Look out! Look out! 
You'll sink the bloomin' ship!" 

''Good old Admiral !” said Jim as he watched 
the speedy schooner drive before the wind. 
"Good old skipper! He thought Td be lonely, 
ril bet he’ll be more so.” 

He realized the sacrifice Captain Burr had 
made. The Admiral, before Jim had gone 
aboard, was the skipper’s only company. 

"Come on, Admiral, I’ll hunt you up a 
banana and then I’ll rustle grub. Gee, but 
this is some picnic!” 

As Jim hunted for ripe bananas he remem- 
bered the skipper’s translation of the name of 
the island. Lele Motu. Lele meant little and 


The Melanesians Come 19 

motu boat or island. The fanciful double 
meaning seemed apt. He was skipper of a 
little boat, moored for the time in mid-Pacihe, 
with an Admiral for first mate and he, for the 
time at least, was in supreme command. He 
could be pirate captain or cannibal chief as he 
willed. He gave the bird its fruit, and started 
preparing his own meal, for the sun was close 
to the horizon and the palms were lacing the 
beach with long shadows. 

Jim woke at dawn. The sky was a marvel 
of hyacinth and tender green, flecked with tiny 
clouds of deep violet and brightest orange. 
Swiftly it brightened, dazzling, then faded to 
turquoise that deepened to a velvety blue. Jim 
started off for a swim in the lagoon. With its 
unbroken reef he thought it should be safe from 
marauding sharks. The Admiral’s cage was 
empty. No fastening could long hold the Ad- 
miral when he made up his mind for adventure, 
but his wings were clipped and Jim had no fear 
of losing him. He could see the bird’s trail 


20 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

distinct in the fine sand, leading towards a coco- 
palm that angled seaward in a graceful curve. 
Jim had climbed it for nuts the night before, 
and now the Admiral, blazing in the level sun 
rays like a living jewel, was walking up the 
slender stem sedately. 

The reef breakers, that had crooned all 
night, now seemed to fall with fresh vigor, 
pounding on the coral in broken pyramids of 
jade and ivory. Jim looked towards them, 
shading his eyes against the sundazzle. 

Something appeared on a seething crest, a 
slender length of black like a mammoth water 
beetle, striking out with desperate legs. The 
next instant it slid sideways down the watery 
hill and smashed upon the reef. A dozen fig- 
ures fell from it, and then a dozen bobbing 
heads appeared in the lagoon. It was a canoe, 
the bobbing heads were those of natives. 

While he stared, first one, then another, 
dragged a weary body up on the beach and 
rested on hands and knees with heads hanging 


The Melanesians Come 21 

down as if exhausted. Slowly they got to 
their feet and staggered up the beach. 

They were like no natives Jim had yet seen. 
These men were black rather than brown. 
Their hair stood up in fanlike frizzes, dyed 
yellow by lime. Their foreheads were low, 
eyes deep sunken, chins retreating. The dis- 
tended lobes of their ears hung in ragged strips 
almost to their shoulders and, stuck in the 
leathery fringes, were ornaments of brass and 
shell. Save for a wisp of fibre they Avere 
stark naked. And they were almost skeletons. 
Hips and ribs showed through skin tight as the 
parchment on a drum, elbows and knees were 
great knots, and the legs and arms mere bone 
and corded sinews. Their lips were hideously 
swollen and cracked, they leaned on long spears. 
One, who appeared the leader, with a shell 
ring thrust through the cartilage of his nose, 
carried a club inset with gleaming bits of 
shell and studded with sharks’ teeth. In the 
lagoon, its outrigger smashed, drifted their 


22 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

canoe, a high-prowed, elaborately carved model. 

Jim knew instinctively that these were not 
natives of the Lower Archipelago. These 
were savages, fighting men, cannibals perhaps, 
wind-blown off their course, carried he guessed 
not how many leagues on the equatorial cur- 
rents. And they were spent to the limit of 
weakness. He stood his ground, while they 
stared back with bloodshot eyeballs, as the 
leader with the club advanced and, pointing to 
his distorted mouth, croaked out one syllable, 
''Fair (water). 

Ten minutes later they were ravenously 
bolting the remnants of the meal that Jim im- 
provised. As they finished, some of them 
rolled face down on the coral grit and lay like 
stuffed manikins. The leader scooped out the 
last of a can of salmon with his fingers, swal- 
lowed the remaining oil and got up, stalking 
towards Jim. He achieved another word, part 
of the Beach- English common to the South Pa- 
cific. 


The Melanesians Come 


23 


^Wisikir 

Jim shook his head. There was some 
whisky in the store-room, but he was not go- 
ing to dole it out to savages. The chief looked 
at him suspiciously, his eyes roved about the 
atoll beach, noting, Jim felt, the absence of a 
whaleboat, the lack of other whites or natives. 

''Kini-kini?” 

Jim shook his head again. He had noticed 
several cases of square-faced trading-gin, but 
he considered hospitality had reached its limit. 
The face of the chief suddenly turned to that 
of a thwarted devil. 

''Kini-kinir he demanded. His followers 
were up, standing back of him. It was not a 
pleasant sight, the leering eyeballs, the spears 
leaning forward with their shafts upon the 
sand and their metal heads gleaming. Jim 
thought of all the tales that he had heard of 
savage cruelty. To give them liquor would be 
but the beginning of looting. After that they 
would probably destroy him as a witness 


24 Jini Morse, South Sea Trader 

against punishment. His jaw set and his gray 
eyes looked back into the greedy orbs of the 
savage with a steadfast gleam. 

^'Aole!” he said firmly. It was the Poly- 
nesian word for ‘^no/’ and the Melanesians 
recognized it. The chief curled back his lips 
and made a sudden, suggestive grimace before 
which Jim paled and stepped back, only 
promptly to recover his stand. Plainer than 
any language the horrid, snapping motion of 
the filed teeth had said, “Give, or I will tear 
the flesh from your bones with my teeth.'' 

For the second Jim felt unutterably lonely 
and defenseless. He had no weapon. Sud- 
denly, the words of Captain Burr came back 
to him, “One white man is worth a dozen of 
'em. You can bluff 'em. They never know 
what a white man has up his sleeve. A white 
man quits tryinT 

“Bluff them. How?" 

^^Kini-kini! WisikiT They commenced 
to crowd him, gesticulating and pointing to- 


The Melanesians Come 25 

wards the house. But they had not rushed 
him. They were still afraid of what he might 
have up his sleeve. 

Jim held up his hand, looking hard at the 
chief who gazed in a momentary fascination. 
Then Jim made a deep cross in the sand with 
a shell that lay at his feet. He scored a heavy 
line some thirty feet in front of them, marking 
the end with another cross. He was a bit 
proud of that line. It was unwavering. 

‘^Now,’’ he said in English, pantomiming in 
illustration. '^One of you step over that line 
and see what will happen.'' He put all the 
conviction he could into the words and stepped 
back and to one side with folded arms under 
which he felt his heart pumping. Would it 
work ? Could he bluff them for a while ? Per- 
haps . . . 

The chief looked at him hesitatingly, the 
rest watching him. This was some white 
man's magic. For a moment it was very quiet, 
the savages blinking, the chief grinning un- 


26 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

certainly. But he made no movement for- 
ward. And Jim completed his bluff. He de- 
liberately turned his back on them and walked 
to the house, expecting every second to hear 
the whisk of a spear and feel its impact in his 
back. It was the hardest thing he had ever 
done in his life. At the shack he tasted blood 
where he had bitten through his lower lip to 
keep it steady. When he turned around they 
were still back of the line. 

There was a knife in the house, on the table, 
and Jim reached in and got it. But he would 
be as a baby in their grips. And it could not 
last. If he really had the upper hand, he 
would have ordered them from the atoll. 
Soon, they would realize this, realize he was 
only a boy and alone. 

He saw the change coming. The natives 
muttered. One of them shoved the other, half 
fearfully, and the man stepped over the magic 
line. And nothing happened. 

With a ''yahr of derision and disgust they 


The Melanesians Come 27 

surged forward. Spears streaked towards 
Jim, and two stuck quivering in the jamb of 
the door, a handsbreadth away. The chief 
came on in long hopping bounds, his club above 
his head. Then, from the sky, it seemed, 
came a shrill voice. 

'‘Look out. Look out below! You'll sink 
the bloomin' ship!" 

They had transgressed! The white magic 
was commencing! These were white men's 
words, though they knew not the meaning. 
But they sensed them as a menace, a warning ! 
Some spell of death! From where? There 
was no one in the trees ! 

They halted almost in mid-stride, suddenly 
frozen like quail before the oncoming dog. 

"Mind your helm, you sons of swabs! Be- 
lay and hard-a-lee !" 

Hidden in the green fronds, one eye cocked 
to the natives below, the Admiral issued his 
orders. Then he emerged, sidling down the 
trunk, scolding shrilly, crest raised. The sav- 


28 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

ages shuddered. Parrots they knew, parrots 
that screamed. But this one talked aloud! 
It was an atua (god) that had assumed this 
shape. Their weapons fell to their sides. 
Their knees knocked, awaiting the fatal stroke 
that must surely fall. The Admiral advanced 
from the tree across the sand, looking at the 
natives as if he was reviewing them. Natives 
he knew and hated and despised. He advanced 
sideways towards the chief who stood goggle- 
eyed and motionless. On went the Admiral, 
looking up warily, heedless of Jim^s call. He 
planted his claws between the chief’s feet and 
dug fiercely at the ankle nearest to him. 

With a yell the wounded savage leaped high, 
bringing down his club instinctively. As it fell 
it caught the Admiral in his backward jump. 
It struck his outspread wing and sent him 
sprawling on the beach in a whirl of sand and 
thrashing feathers. 

The spell was broken ! The god was only a 
bird. With a yell the natives rushed for Jim. 



They surged forward. Spears streaked toward Jim, and two stuck (luivering in the 

jamb of the door 




' vl 

..JL 




.Ji'-it •«. . • ■ 




■ ,. ■ -iw 


> 










•i ■•< 






tit 


'«^f '^<f- 


p) 





rr 


.i ■ ' 

j** i^iK f 

4 


atf V ^ 




' ^ 




> 

A 


-t 1 




> « 


•f 


v 



lii 

» I * 




^ w 


■^BT ' * ^ 


A - * 


/Vi ^ 


• I 


'''=. , '»• 


. if^ 
:*!* ■ * 



< 




« 





MS':-:' 

7^ X '».'■> 


«r ^ 




' — » i _ 


,, 



4 I 

% i , H? 



•? 






rw 




>■ ; V 




• #* 

.»kj 


• t 


•aV 


■i 


wts, 


r* 4 . 



f f 






*V 









r:i 





u-i % 


t. 




s 




■■■ \;. .. . #v 


• - *-.11 

n.’ 





’f'*' ■. 


V 




•Jf ^ In/"' ^ 






.'i 


4 . 7 - 4 .. -■>■ ' v^ 



V 




■♦ -- 


v» 





The Melanesians Come 29 

There were lumps of coral by the steps of 
the house. Swiftly Jim stopped and clutched 
and flung a rough missile fairly into the face 
of the leading savage. It caught him between 
the eyes at short range with all the ''speed’’ 
Jim could put behind it. The man dropped. 

Another leaped over him and grabbed Jim’s 
left arm. The boy slashed out with his knife 
and saw the red blood start. Panting, he 
wrenched free. The thing that saved him 
from their spears was the fact that they at- 
tacked in a huddle. Then they separated at 
a hoarse shout and Jim, desperately gripping 
his weapon, saw the towering form of the chief 
leap forward, the great club lifted. . . . 

''Thupr Jim caught the sound distinctly, 
as if some one had struck a carpet with a stick. 
A red spot appeared on the chest of the chief, 
grew into rapidly expanding flower and the 
savage suddenly slumped like a sack partly 
filled with sawdust. The other natives 
wheeled about, uttering cries of submission 


30 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

and flinging down their spears. A whaleboat 
was on the edge of sand and water, a boat 
twice the size of that carried on the Manuwai 
and equipped with a mast. A white man, red 
bearded, stood by the bows, a rifle carried in 
his hands, ready for the aim. At his order 
eight brown-skinned Polynesians, four of 
whom also carried guns, were coming up the 
beach towards Jim and the surrendering sav- 
ages. Jim dropped his knife and sprinted to 
the boat. 

^'Uncle Dan!’' he cried as he ran. ''Uncle 
Dan, it’s Jim !” 

"So I see,” said the ruddy-whiskered trader 
laconically. "It’s a bit of a surprise party all 
around. Come on up to the house and tell me 
your end of it first. My throat’s like a lime 
kiln ; we’ve had bad luck, and been shy of water 
since yesterday. Hello, what’s this?” 

"This,” was the Admiral, with feathers and 
feelings still ruffled, but very much alive, wad- 
dling towards Jim. Jim picked up the parrot 


The Melanesians Come 31 

, which perched on one hand, while Jim caressed 
him with the other. 

^'Look out,'' said the bird, addressing Dan- 
iel Morse. '^Look out, you son of a swab, 
you'll sink the bloomin' ship!" 

''It’s Captain Burr’s parrot,” said Jim. 
"He saved my life.” 

"I know the brute,” said his uncle. "He 
tried to lunch off my finger when I was asleep 
on deck one time. I’m glad to hear he can be 
useful. As for saving your life, you seemed 
to be taking a pretty good hand in that your- 
self, far as I could see. We spotted the muss 
as we made the reef, and I got busy. You held 
’em off just long enough. I’m proud of ye.” 

"Thanks, Uncle Dan,” answered Jim. "I 
thought it was all over. I was too excited to 
see your boat come over the reef but I figured 
that — that if I had to quit, I might as well 
quit trying," 


CHAPTER III 


THE PEARLS OF TIA RAU 

It was the end of Jim's fourth week on Lele 
Motu. Captain Burr had said he would be 
back in a month. 

Jim wiped the smarting sweat out of his eyes 
and straightened his back with a sigh of relief 
as he tallied the last of the sacks of copra. 
The native boys were already splashing and 
laughing in the lagoon, glad to get out of the 
tin-roofed copra shed with its super-heated 
air, heavy with the smell of slightly rancid co- 
coanut meat. Outside, glowing like a jewel 
in the sun, the Admiral stalked over the sand 
towards a slanting palm, cocking one ruby-cir- 
cled eye at Jim as the latter came to the door 
and clucked with his tongue at the gorgeous 
bird. The sand scorched Jim's bare soles, and 


32 


The Pearls of Tia Rau 33 

he hurried down to the water that was almost 
as green inside the reef as were the feathers 
on the parrot’s back. 

The surface water in the lagoon was warm, 
but Jim, imitating the natives, over whom he 
had charge in working hours, swam down to 
cooler depths and clung to projections in the 
pitted wall of the coral reef and, half-hidden 
in the trailing banners of weed, watched the 
scurrying schools of gaudy fish for all of two 
bursting minutes before he shot up to the sur- 
face. 

Ratiki, who was a Penrhyn man, a shark- 
killer, a swimmer who swam as another man 
walks, a famous pearl-diver and, with all these 
attributes, a lazy, thieving rascal, could stay 
down for twice that time, while, with a hand- 
net and a palm-leaf, he fanned into the meshes 
a dozen gaudy colored, strange-shaped rockfish. 
Ratiki controlled his limbs as if they were fins, 
guiding himself without apparent effort. Dan- 
iel Morse declared that, if Ratiki was dissected, 
he would be found equipped with an air blad- 


34 Morse, South Sea Trader 

der, like a fish, so that he could rise or descend 
at will. 

Ratiki, playing shark, grabbed Tomi, the 
sleek, porpoise-bodied boss of the copra-drying, 
by the leg to drag him into an underwater cave. 
The two made themselves the hub of a pro- 
digious whirl of bubbles and, just as Jim, 
breathless, rose, Tomi kicked Ratiki in the 
stomach and drove him gasping to the top. 

^'My word,” he spluttered. ‘'Bimeby I 
plenty fix that Tomi ! Too much pain he make 
walk along my belly. I think, Misti Jimi, un- 
less I get kini-kini (gin) plenty quick I mate 
(die).” 

And then Ratiki forgot his stomach-ache and 
all the natives clubbed their way overhanded 
to shore with the Polynesian crawl, as the Ad- 
miral, wide awake now, screamed: 

There she blows, my hearties! There she 
blows! All hands aloft, you lubbers, or you'll 
sink the bloomin' ship!" 

Jim saw his napping uncle slide out of the 
hammock on the store veranda and focus a pair 


The Pearls of Tia Rau 35 

of sea-glasses on a schooner that came blithely 
on before the breeze, dropped mainsail, came 
up smartly into the wind and let its anchor go 
in twenty fathoms. 

A dinghy shot out from the lee side of the 
visitor, bearing a hedge anchor that was deftly 
thrown to the shore side of the reef where its 
flukes caught and held, so that the schooner 
rode between two cables, safe from any chance 
of grinding on the coral. The dinghy returned 
and, presently, a whaleboat with a white man 
in the stern and four lusty kanakas at the 
sweeps, came racing to the reef line, stayed, 
backing water till the white man tossed up his 
hand, standing to handle the long steering oar, 
hung in the crest of a curving wall of hissing 
jade and silver, then leaped the barrier and 
swiftly made the beach, where all Lele Motu 
was drawn up in welcome. 

Daniel Morse, on Lele Motu, as port-of-call 
for a dozen atolls, acted as middleman for 
other owners by virtue of the fact that Old 
Man Burr, of the schooner Manuwai, was a 


36 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

friend of his and had, somewhat arbitrarily, 
established Lele Motu as the clearing-house 
of the little archipelago. And here were skip- 
per and schooner ready for the cargo over 
which Jim had so earnestly labored. It was 
a welcome sight to Jim, for Captain Burr's 
friendly warning about his uncle had already 
been backed by material reasons. Daniel 
Morse had an uncertain temper, streaky as his 
spurts of work and long hours of idleness, 
and, more than once, Jim smelled the reek of 
gin wafted on his uncle's snores. 

Sometimes, though he banished the thought 
as disloyal, Jim wished that the genial skipper 
had been his relative. 

Daniel Morse shooed off the natives as if 
they had been flies, and, hooking the skipper 
under the elbow, bore him off to the store. 
Jim followed with the Admiral atop his shoul- 
der. But he did not go in immediately, for 
he thought he caught sight of Ratiki sneaking 
through the pandanus growth and, wondering 
what the rascal was up to, tried to trail him. 


The Pearls of Tia Rau 37 

but lost him in the thick scrub back of the store 
and living cabin. 

''If rd had a decked boat/’ Daniel Morse 
was saying when Jim entered, "Fd have stuck 
it out, dirty weather or not; but Tia Rau is no 
place to get caught in a whaleboat. Too many 
sharks about, for one thing. The rips are 
alive with ’em. We were shy of water an’ 
the sun spiled the nuts for drinkin’, so, what 
with the weather thickenin’ up an’ the sea get- 
tin’ nasty, as soon as Ratiki comes up from his 
third dive, I makes up my mind to come home. 
It ain’t a one-man job, an’ that’s a fact, when 
that man don’t own sloop or schooner, an’ I’m 
offering you clean halves, if you’ll go over 
with me. As for what we’ll get — look at these 
— out of three dives, mind ye.” 

He took a tin box from his pocket and turned 
it open and upside down on the counter. 
Something rattled out, something rolled tink- 
ling up against the bottle of square-face that 
Daniel Morse had set out for his guest and 
himself. Jim craned forward. He saw some 


38 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

curiously shaped pieces of pearl, perhaps a 
dozen white specks, two pearls the size of B.B. 
shot and one as big as a fat green pea, milky, 
opalescent, fuzzy with faint fire. Captain 
Burr poked at the others with a horny middle 
finger, but picked up the gem with a raising of 
his grizzled, overhanging eyebrows. 

'Them atoll reefs without any land but the 
top of the coral are the places where the big 
pearls grow/’ he said. "And shell was up and 
still risin’ when I left Tahiti. Looks good, 
Morse. I’ll go you.” 

"Good! When? I don’t like to leave the 
thing any longer. It’s been there a long time, 
I know, but now I’ve found the stuff. I’m ner- 
vous. Black and Gooch, over there on Nivau, 
have got a sloop. If they got wind of this, 
they’d be there like a duck. 'Findings-keep- 
ings’ in this game, you know, skipper. ’Tain’t 
as if you could stick up a shack on Tia Rau 
and claim possession. Even at low tide there 
ain’t nothin’ but a few shag-rocks.” 

"I’ve seen the place,” said the captain. 


The Pearls of Tia Rau 39 

^^And,” he added with a grin, ^'it ain’t the first 
bunch of pearl Tve got by bearin’ the other fel- 
low to it. But who’s likely to tip off Dave 
Black and Pete Gooch ?” 

Morse lowered his voice. 

''Ratiki,” he said. ''He came over to me 
after he’d had a run-in with Dave Black a year 
ago. He’s a good diver and boat-boy, but a 
bad egg. I’ve had to dock him ’count of the 
stuff he swipes, an’ I had a run-in with him 
last week. He’d blow off to Black in a min- 
ute, if he thought he’d get even with me an’ 
something for himself. He’s no fool, an’ he’ll 
figger that you an’ me may make a deal. He 
knows why I had to give it up with only my 
whaleboat.” The skipper looked shrewdly at 
Morse. 

"What did you do? Beat him up?” he 
asked. Morse’s tan deepened. 

"I lammed him some with a stingray whip,” 
he said. "He’d got into the store an’ swiped 
a bottle of kini-kini and some salmon.” 

"Too bad you licked him, Morse,” he said. 


40 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Penrhyn man don’t forget that or forgive 
it in a hurry. Better keep an eye on Ratiki. 
I don’t see as I can go with ye until I get back 
from Tahiti. What you’ve got will fill me up. 
I can come back right off.” 

''Wish you’d change your mind and go right 
now,” said Daniel Morse. "I’ve got a hunch 
we’ll lose out if we pass up the chance. Grab 
the luck when you find it, ’s my motto.” 

"I thought I saw Ratiki sneaking ’round 
back of here before I came in,” broke in Jim. 

"You did? Then go get him. The ras- 
cal understands United States pretty well. 
There’s only my whaleboat on the island, out- 
side of your boats. No canoes. I won’t let 
’em have ’em. Only way to keep ’em here. 
Wages won’t held ’em. You know that. But 
I’ll keep Mister Ratiki under my eye.” 

"’Bout twenty mile to Nivau, ain’t it?” 
asked the skipper. 

"We call it that. Why?” 

"Better round up Ratiki right away. Sun’s 
gettin’ low. Come nightfall, he may take it in 


The Pearls of Tia Ran 41 

his head to swim over to Nivau an' tip off 
Black." 

''Swim twenty miles?" asked Jim. "What 
about sharks?" 

"I don't know," said Burr. "Maybe they 
don't like Penrhyn islanders, maybe they all 
pack a charm, like they say they do. I do 
know that I've met 'em miles from shore, 
fishin', shovin' a small plank that holds their 
lines an' bait an' catch. They’ll swim off five 
miles with a letter for a trade dollar any day. 
Better round up Ratiki." 

Jim dived through the back door as his 
uncle called Tomi to help find the boy. Lele 
Motu was not more than a mile in length, and 
about three-quarters at its greatest breadth, 
but it was thick with scrub back from the beach 
and trails were few. Already the sky was 
greening to sunset, with tiny flecks and stream- 
ers of cloud, high up, changing from orange to 
pink. As he came back unsuccessful from the 
windward point, the pink clouds turned to pur- 
ple, the sky faded like the side of a landed dol- 


42 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

phin, the sun dipped and, with a rush, the stars 
were out, turning from glittering silver to 
throbbing gold as the sky grew olive, violet, 
purple-black, and Jim hit the open beach to 
avoid tripping up in the bush vines and jungle 
tangle. 

There was no moon, but the deep dusk was 
transparent. It was like looking through 
stained glass, he thought, as he hurried on. 
Out of a clump of ironwood, Jim fancied he 
saw a dark figure glide to the lagoon and he 
hurried on, shouting. There was some one 
swimming under water, leaving a dim trail of 
greenish sea-fire. Where the combers fell on 
the reef, they showed the reflection of their 
foaming crest in a pale glow. Jim saw some- 
thing like a seal’s head rise in this phosphor- 
escence and then a body scuttle across the coral 
and dive horizontally into the heart of a roller. 
A call brought Captain Burr and Morse. 

'Tt’s Ratiki,” exclaimed Morse. ^T wish I 
had a rifle. Td throw a scare into him, if noth- 
ing worse.” 


43 


The Pearls of Tia Ran 

''See him, Jim? Dived like a loon,’' said the 
skipper, coming up. "You’ll not see him again 
in this light, Morse. Time we got a boat after 
him he’d be a mile away. Come on back. 
He’s gone to tip off Black and Gooch. We’ll 
get out soon as the tide changes. No use buck- 
ing the current.” 

Soon Jim was busy in the hurried prepara- 
tion to start for Tia Rau, the lonely reef that 
just protruded above high water, where lay an 
untouched bed of pearl-shell in the shallow, 
shark-guarded lagoon. 

"I’ve seen that sloop of Black’s,” said the 
skipper. "Saw it over to Tahiti, before they 
bought it. Built in San Francisco. Spoon- 
bowed, fast as a streak, sticks its nose into the 
wind and eats it. Go four fathom to my three, 
close-hauled, and that’s how we’ll be sailing. 
But they’ve got to wait on tide, same as we 
have, or chance gettin’ set ’way down to lee- 
ward.” 

Daniel Morse was busy getting cartridges 
for two Winchesters and a brace of automatics. 


44 Morse, South Sea Trader 

and the skipper nodded at Jim to drive home 
his talk. 

‘'Will it give Ratiki time to get over to Ni- 
vau?’’ asked Jim. 

“It’s this way,” answered the skipper, ar- 
ranging some objects on the table in the store 
counter. “Ratiki’s got a five-knot current to 
help him along and he’ll make the most of it 
without tirin’ himself. We can’t count on get- 
tin’ any the better of the start. Here’s the way 
we lie. This cartridge is Tia Rau, the baccy- 
tin Lele Motu and this glass Nivau . . 

Jim noted the points forming an obtuse-an- 
gled triangle with the twenty miles between 
Lele Motu and Nivau as the base, the apex 
swung to the east, in the direction of Lele 
Motu. 

“They’ve got the longer leg,” he said. 

“But the faster boat, ’less the wind changes. 
It’s goin’ to be touch an’ go. Reckon we’ll 
both hit there about dark. Got to, if we fig- 
ger on anchorin’. Then the fun’ll start. If 
it’s too late, it’ll hold over till next mornin’. 


The Pearls of Tia Rau 45 

You see, Jim, like your uncle says, if we had 
any shack there, or any sort of location notice, 
we’d have first claim, an’ it’s likely Black an’ 
Gooch wouldn’t dispute it. But there’s nothin’ 
to prove we got there first an’, if the pearls 
show like they should from what Ratiki brought 
up from the patch he struck, there’s a small 
fortune there, an’ one worth fightin’ over.” 

'‘With those?” asked Jim, glancing at the 
guns. 

"Surest thing ye know. Ain’t afeared, are 
ye? Mebbe you’d better stay to home.” 

"Not me,” protested Jim. "I’m no good at 
shooting; at least, I don’t know much about it, 
but I can do my trick on the schooner. You 
know that. Captain Burr ?” 

"Sure I do. I reckon you’d better come, if 
you’re to get your share of what we find.” 

"How’s that?” asked Daniel Morse sharply. 
"What share? What ’ud the boy do with a 
share? I’m lookin’ out for him all right.” 

"Well,” said the skipper. "He might eddi- 
cate himself with it or maybe buy a share in a 


46 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

good, lively schooner/’ He winked at Jim. 
''But we’ll argy that later. Time to be gettin’ 
aboard. Talk ain’t oysters and all oysters 
ain’t pearlfish. Come on.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE RACE FOR TIA RAU 

The skipper took the wheel and Jim stood 
in the bows as the schooner swashed through 
the luminous seas. The brine seethed away in 
streaks of green fire, yet the drops, tossed aloft 
to the deck as the head-wind flung up the spray, 
were pale violet, the hue of burning alcohol. 
His brain was busy. share in a good, 
lively schooner !” The skipper had meant the 
Manuwai. He liked Jim and had wanted him 
to go along with him, before they reached Lele 
Motu. That would be fine ! To trade among 
the islands and see the native customs ; to col- 
lect curios on the side while they swapped 
prints and tobacco and salmon for beche-de- 
mer; for trepang, the sea-slugs the Chinese 
bought so eagerly, for copra and turtle-shell. 
Great! But they might have to fight for it. 

47 


48 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

The sloop from Nivau was slashing through 
the waves on a converging tack, towards them. 
What would happen when they met at the 
apex? Jim remembered the saying of a pearl- 
buyer at Tahiti, while he had waited for the 
schooner to clear. “The whiter the pearl, the 
more blood back of it.’’ Inside of twenty 
hours they might be all trying to murder one 
another before the oysters were disturbed at 
all. And if Ratiki came? — but Jim figured 
from what he knew of the Penrhyn man that 
the latter would not risk the wrath of Daniel 
Morse, but would stay behind to enjoy the gifts 
given him for his news. 

The motion of the vessel made Jim sleepy, 
and he curled up on a coil of the anchor cable 
of fine Manila hemp, heedless of the lunges of 
the schooner, the shock from the seas, the slat 
of the jibs above him, and the heavy boom- 
boom when the water pounded on the curve of 
the bows. His uncle woke him at dawn to 
offer him a breakfast of a cup of hot tea and 
some biscuit. 


The Race for Tia Ran 49 

‘The skipper says you can steer/' said Morse. 
“Take your trick." 

Jim jumped at the chance. The wind was 
still heading, and, with flattened canvas, the 
schooner clawed into it. Jim strove to hold 
her on one spoke, listening for the tell-tale flut- 
ter in the sails that would warn of holding up 
too close, watching the little flag at the peak to 
see that he did not fall off. The skipper came 
over to him and gave him a slap on the shoul- 
der. 

“That's the way, Jim. Humor her a bit on 
the big ones. Keep her from swingin'. 
You're doin' fine." 

His trick over, Jim stayed at the port rail, 
watching for some sign of the sloop. But the 
blue seas ran glassy clear to the horizon; not 
even a gull was in sight. A dolphin chased 
some flying-fish for a while and then, having 
sated both sport and stomach, left them alone. 
Jim wandered aft to where the skipper leaned 
against the taffrail, smoking a short pipe. 
Daniel Morse was below^ asleep. 


50 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

was thinking/’ said Jim, ^'remembering 
the way you showed the lay-out last night, that 
if we are to keep close-hauled an’ the wind 
holds, the sloop from Nivau ’ll be reaching, 
won’t she?” 

The skipper let a trailer of smoke from his 
mouth. 

"Yes, sir,” he said. "Reachin’ an’ goin’ like 
a cat up a tree. But we’re doin’ fine. Keep 
her up well, Billi-Boy. Doin’ fine. I don’t 
believe there’s goin’ to be fifteen minnits dif- 
ference between us. You can try the patent 
log, if ye want to, though they’s small sense to 
me in knowin’ how fast you’re goin’, so long’s 
you’re goin’ as fast as you can, and you ain’t 
got to worry about your reckoning.” 

Jim cast the brass log with its turning screws. 
It registered a little better than nine knots. 
At four bells in the afternoon he took the wheel 
again. The breeze was still strong and steady. 
At eight bells, Billi-Boy, the kanaka boatswain, 
relieved him and, with a grin, pointed out a 
speck far to port. 


The Race for Tia Ran 51 

golly, that sloop she walk along plenty 
quick!” said Billi-Boy. 

Jim watched the white fleck of sail grow un- 
til the flash of the hull came intermittently, as 
the sloop rapidly closed in towards them. His 
uncle and the skipper were forward, the latter 
with his powerful binoculars trained ahead. 
He passed them to Morse. 

'That's our place, I take it,” he said. 'Tve 
always given it a clear berth when I was this 
way. A nasty hole.” 

"And the weather ain't lookin' over and 
above good,” said Daniel Morse. "That's the 
spot, right enough.” 

With the waning of the afternoon the 
weather had slowly changed. Off to wind- 
ward, heavy squalls of rain showed and the 
sea had turned gray. Jim strained his eyes 
and saw a circle of livid green fringed with 
white foam and here and there a black fang 
showing in the creamy wash. It was Tia Rau, 
a half developed atoll, all reef, the central core 
still below the surface. His uncle passed him 


52 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

the glasses in turn, bidding him look at an ob- 
ject that showed among the rocks. 

''That’s someone’s anchor. All that’s left 
of them,” he said. "I counted seven of them 
stuck in the reef. Seven anchors and seven 
wrecks, with the crews gone to feed the sharks. 
Look at the hungry devils, now. They think 
we’re goin’ to give ’em another meal.” 

Gliding through the gray water were the 
sickle fins of several sharks, seemingly curious 
at the approach of the vessel. One swam high 
enough to show both the dorsal and the upper 
lobe of his tail. 

Aboard the sloop a little group was forward, 
a white man among them, clad in ducks and 
singlet, his hair a flame of red in the quicken- 
ing sunset. Another white man, with only a 
waist cloth about his loins, his skin almost as 
dark as a native’s, a long black beard streaming 
across his chest, was at the wheel, glancing at 
the schooner as the two boats neared each other 
and the reef. Not a hail was given. Already 
the nearness of the pearls and the close finish 


The Race for Tia Rau 53 

of the race seemed to have bred a sullen hos- 
tility. 

'7™, take the wheel/’ said the skipper. 
^^Ready, Billi-Boy. Stand by fore and main 
sheets! Ready on the downhauls for’ard! 
Chuck her into the wind, Jim! Over with 
her!” 

On board the sloop the same manoeuvers 
were being gone through, but the sloop’s sheets 
were farther out and she was off the wind. 
Jim could hear the shouts of both the white 
men coming down wind plainly. The anchors 
hit the water at almost the same second. 
Down came the sloop’s mainsail, then her jib, 
and the two craft rode within a cable’s length 
while their crews furled sail. Captain Burr 
put out a second anchor aft and they repeated 
the move aboard the sloop. 

''Dead heat,” muttered Daniel Morse. 
"What’s the next move?” 

"Can’t get a boat inside that reef for an hour 
yet,” pronounced the skipper. "Then it’ll be 
dark. Hail ’em and ask ’em to come aboard. 


54 Morse, South Sea Trader 

Morse. They'll come. Just as anxious to 
keep eyes on us as we on them. We can talk 
the thing over." 

Daniel Morse cupped his hands and roared 
the invitation. Somewhat to Jim’s surprise, it 
was accepted. A small boat danced over the 
uneasy waves towards the schooner. Two 
kanakas pulled and the white men were in the 
stern. Jim noticed his uncle belting on his au- 
tomatic. The skipper had shoved his in his 
hip pocket, where it bulged conspicuously. 

The greeting between the four was outwardly 
friendly, but the boat was not sent away, 
though the native boys climbed aboard and 
fraternized with the schooner’s crew. 

''Come below an’ let’s talk this thing over,’’ 
suggested Daniel Morse. "We’ll have chow, 
too. Jim,’’ he added, "you get a bite in the 
galley. Better keep out of this.’’ 

The universal meal of canned beef, tea and 
captain’s biscuits was served. Voices came 
up the open hatch. 

"You can’t prove you were here first, Morse, 


55 


The Race for Tia Ran 

and you know it. What’s the use of talking?” 
The voice was high pitched and querulous. 
Jim fancied it belonged to the red-headed man. 

''No use talkin’ till to-morrow, anyway.” 
That was the bearded one, Gooch, thought Jim. 
His deeper voice was deprecating. "Let’s be 
sociable. Here’s grog, an’ I dessay Morse or 
the skipper here has got some cards. We can 
have a game an’ keep each other company. 
Can’t start anything to-night.” 

Then came the chink of glasses, the smell 
of burning tobacco. Jim felt relieved. The 
men were not quarrelsome. Still, they had 
brought their guns with them. The skipper 
came up on deck. Jim went to him. 

"Ah, Jim,” he said. "I reckon they’ll make 
a night of it. Don’t you worry none. We’ll 
keep the peace till morning. They’re mainly 
bluff, but they got their hook down as soon as 
we did an’, as it stands, they’ve got an even look 
in. They could claim shares an’ get it.” 

"But uncle’s men would prove he was here 
before? You saw the pearls.” 


56 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

^'Kanakas' word ain’t worth a pinch of wet 
salt before the Commissioner. It’s two white 
men against two. Ratiki would swear he 
didn’t get the pearls, anyway. And the Crown 
’ud claim a big share. Might claim to own 
the reef. No tellin’, where there’s pearls in 
sight, an’ no location notice. Some one ’ud 
cook up a claim.” 

'What’s a location notice?” asked Jim. 

"Some sort of scribble on a shack or a tree 
to show the lagoon is being worked by some- 
one. Don’t know as it’s altogether legal, but 
it ’ud bluff off those two. Give us a big ad- 
vantage, if we had to put the matter up to the 
Commish. Besides, they’re yellow at bottom. 
Don’t believe they’d start a scrap, but, if they 
think they got equal rights, they’ll stick, an’ 
then your uncle’s likely to start something by 
mornin’. I’ll keep the peace till then. You 
better turn in whenever you feel like it.” 

Jim did not feel like it. A plan was slowly 
hatching in his mind. The lagoon lay quiet. 
A small boat could enter now. But, patrolling 


The Race for Tia Rau 57 

the little gate, criss-crossing the fiery trails 
from their fins, moved the sharks. And, on 
the reef, several anchor stocks, the only monu- 
ments of the crews that had found their fate 
in the maws of the sea-tigers, showed plainly. 

Jim shivered a little and then screwed up 
his courage to his undertaking. ^'YouVe only 
got to be careful, Jim,'’ he said, half aloud, to 
hearten himself. 'That's all. It's worth try- 
ing. By morning they'll be in ugly temper and 
there may be murder. You might get rid of 
a terrible row if you take the chance. Buck 
up and play the game !" 

Forward, the natives were chanting their 
island meles (songs), sprawled out on deck. 
Soon they would be asleep. A riding light 
shone from the sloop. Otherwise it was dark. 
The small boat that had brought over Black 
and Gooch trailed from the mainsheet cleat, 
its oars stuck under the thwarts. Jim knew 
the lay-out of the schooner. He went below, 
down the fore-companion, passed into the 
trade-room and lit a swinging lamp. Through 


58 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

the doored partition to the main cabin he could 
hear the laughs and ejaculations of the four 
pearl hunters as they played cards in seeming 
amiability. 

Jim found a marking-pot and the lid of a 
case of tobacco that was only lightly held on 
by two or three nails. Then he set to work. 
Half an hour later he came on deck again. 
The native boys were quiet now, asleep on the 
planks. Jim climbed over the rail, got into the 
small boat and threw off the hitch, coiling the 
painter. The sea pitched only moderately. 
Though the sky was murky, there seemed no 
likelihood of anything but passing squalls. 

Suddenly, the boat lurched as if it had struck 
a rock. Jim looked to see a whirl of aqueous 
flame glide off. Another was approaching. 
Still another joined it. Sharks! They scraped 
alongside of the dinghy, nudging at it with 
their snouts, testing its balance. Jim rowed 
desperately for the opening in the reef, fear- 
ful that one would seize the blade of an oar. 
After a short, hard pull he reached the gap. 


59 


The Race for Tia Ran 

shot through and into the calm water that was 
alive with light. There was sweat on his fore- 
head, the sweat of fear. He had run one-half 
of the gauntlet successfully, but he had yet to 
return. 

‘‘Buck up and play the game, old scout!” he 
murmured, and paddled over to where the 
largest anchor-stock stood almost upright be- 
tween the snags of coral. There was a wide 
platform of the stuff only just covered with the 
ebbing tide. Jim stepped on it and got to work, 
fastening his dinghy carefully to the anchor. 
Then he got back into the boat and faced his 
return. The tide was running out of the en- 
trance and it swept him along towards the 
schooner so that he needed only to paddle, 
which he did with shallow dipped blades. On 
either side four sharks escorted him, closing 
in as if they feared they would lose their prey. 
There came a tug at his starboard oar that 
almost pulled him overboard, while the dinghy 
tipped perilously. He had to let go the oar. 
Instantly, four of the beasts were ravening at 


6o Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

it in a yeast of flame. There was a notch in 
the stern, and Jim put his remaining oar to it 
and waggled furiously. Bump! A shark 
rushed and butted the thin planks. Another! 
Then a frightful wrench at the second oar. 
Jim fell in the stern, one wrist in the water, 
snatching it away just in time to save it from 
the maw of a shark. The brute had turned, 
and he could see the rows of teeth — the sickly 
gleam of its bell> I 

Bump! and Bump! again. But this was the 
side of the schooner, and he scrambled to the 
bows of the bobbing boat, flinging the painter 
aboard as he jumped for the main stays, got a 
grip and flung himself aboard, panting, in time 
to belay the painter. 

The job was done, and Jim lay down, his 
heart pounding furiously. Presently he fell 
asleep, his head on the curve of his arm. 

The dawn broke in bars of lemon against a 
purple sky. Jim awoke and went over to the 
skylight. The quartet was still playing. 
Gooch flung down his cards with a curse. 


The Race for Tia Rau 6i 

‘'That's enough of this," he said. “Sun's 
up. Let's talk business." 

“None to talk," said Daniel Morse aggres- 
sively. “I was here first." 

“Got to show me. Where's the proof?" 

Jim, peering through the tilted skylight, 
caught sight of the skipper's upturned face 
and beckoned with his finger. The skipper 
got up and yawned. 

“Let's have breakfast first," he said. “I'll 
rouse the boys. What's the idea, Jim?" he 
asked, as he came on deck. 

Jim handed him the binoculars, pointing to a 
board nailed to a wooden post and securely 
lashed to the stock of an abandoned anchor. 
There was lettering on it, and it faced so that 
these words could be read from the schooner : 

THIS PEARL FISHERY 
LOCATED & OWNED 
BY DANIEL MORSE 
AND 

CAPTAIN BURR. 

ALL OTHERS KEEP OFF. 

KAPU. 


62 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

The last word was the one so often written 
''tabu,” meaning forbidden. Jim had added 
it as a touch that would appeal to the natives 
in their gossip. The skipper put down his 
glasses and turned to Jim, slapping his great 
thigh. 

"By Time,” he said. "You’ve turned the 
trick! That’ll hold ’em! They’s one thing 
wrong with it, though,” he added. 

"What?” asked Jim. 

"You left off your own name. An’ you can 
take it from me, it’s goin’ to go on as third 
owner. Yes, sir. That goes or me and my 
schooner don’t stay in the deal. When did ye 
do it?” 

Jim told him, and the skipper grinned and 
extended his great palm, giving Jim a grip that 
was eloquent. 

"Thet’s what I call usin’ your nerve an’ your 
noddle at the same time,” he said. "I’d never 
have thought of that in a hundred years, 
an’, if I had. I’d sure have hated to go through 
with it. If you’d tipped over, the sharks 


The Race for Tia Ran 63 

would have made hash out of you in no time.’’ 

“They got the two oars,” said Jim. “Nearly 
pulled me overboard. 

The skipper shook his head. 

“I’ll go and put your uncle wise,” he said. 
“Black an’ Gooch ’ll go home now with a flea in 
their ears. Beats me how you got the nerve 
to tackle it. Bad enough in the daytime.” 

“I was sure scared,” said Jim honestly. 
“ ’Specially about coming back, with the sharks 
waiting for me. I reckon I just jollied myself 
along. Kept on telling myself to buck up.” 

“You bucked up, all right,” roared the skip- 
per. “That’s sure a good un.” He went off 
shaking his head and chuckling. At the head 
of the companion he looked back at Jim and 
exploded. ''Kapu! I’ll be keel-hauled if that 
ain’t a good un !” 

The fire had been started in the galley stove, 
and Jim felt that he needed a cup of coffee. 
He glanced over the rail before he went for it. 
The phosphorescence had died with the day- 
light, but, splitting the gently heaving sea, he 


64 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

saw the fins of the sea-tigers, on their ceaseless 
and ever hopeful patrol, guardians of the pearls 
of Tia Rau. 


CHAPTER V 


THE LOST GALLEON 

Jim, with the Admiral side-stepping on one 
shoulder, his Uncle Dan’s binoculars slung 
across the other, clambered through the guava 
bush to Lookout Rock, the highest point of the 
little isle of Lele Motu, and focussed his glasses 
on the eastern horizon to catch the first glimpse 
of the topsails of Captain Burr’s expected 
schooner. 

''Not all Captain Burr’s at that,” thought 
Jim, proudly. A third of the vessel was Jim’s 
by right of purchase and, as soon as the 
schooner came to anchor outside the reef- 
bound lagoon, Jim was to qualify as first mate. 

The profits of the expedition to shark- 
guarded Tia Rau had not proven so great as 
they had hoped. The lagoon was too con- 
stantly disturbed by the outer seas for the best 
65 


66 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

results of oyster breeding, Captain Burr 
opined. Later, when the barrier had risen 
higher, it might furnish better returns. 

Still there was enough for Jim out of his 
share, to buy in with the skipper, and now that 
the copra season was over his duties as his 
uncle's storekeeper and supercargo were ended. 
Daniel Morse had given his consent to Jim's 
plea to ship with Captain Burr, backed, as the 
request was, by Burr himself. They were go- 
ing after beche-de-mer, called in the Malay 
trepang, the slugs of the sea-shallows that, 
when dried, are esteemed a luxury by the 
Chinese. 

Inside the reef that ringed Lele Motu the 
water was green as an emerald, beyond, it was 
peacock-blue to the far horizon. There was 
no wind, though the cumulous trade clouds to 
the northeast showed like the puffed cheeks of 
the myrmidons of Aeolus, ready to blow when 
the order was given. The banners of the co- 
coa-palms trailed green and glossy; a wonder- 
ful, aromatic odor, blent of fragrant bush and 


The Lost Galleon 67 

the flowers of Lele Motu, rose like invisible in- 
cense ; a bosun’s bird soared overhead and some 
boobies and gannets were quarreling on the 
western point of the island. 

On the sea-line itself, sharply defined, two 
tiny specks of white appeared and faded again 
the instant that Jim detected them. They were 
the topsails of the Manuwai, pearly in the sun 
until the shoreward tack threw them into 
shadow. 

Soon, however, the schooner was well up, 
slipping in towards the land on the breeze that 
did not yet touch Lele Motu but blew out from 
the trade-clouds. Jim, bending down and tak- 
ing the Admiral upon his wrist, hurried back 
through the bush to the beach to greet the skip- 
per with his uncle’s saluting cannon. 

Jim, rousing with the roar of the little brass 
gun all the sleepy kanaka boys, had the island 
whaleboat in the water and its crew aboard 
before his uncle came yawning from his siesta 
in the palm grove. 

As the jibs and staysails came down with the 


68 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

main, and the schooner, nosing the wind, let 
go its anchor, Jim steered the double-ender 
over the coral between waves, brought the 
whaleboat alongside, sprang at the rail and, 
rushing aft to where Captain Burr stood smil- 
ing at him, suddenly recollected his dignity, 
steadied himself, touched his forelock and re- 
ported, ''Come aboard, sir.” 

"Very good, Mr. Morse,’’ replied the skip- 
per. "Will you snug ship, while I get my stuff 
up from below?” 

Jim thrilled at the "Mister,” the official recog- 
nition of his matedom. But he knew what to 
do, and he made the crew — his crew — jump to 
the furling. 

''Ship ahoy, I'm adrift! I'm adrift! Chuck 
us a rope!” 

Just how much a parrot understands I leave 
to the theorists. The Admiral had a knack of 
supplying the right phrases to certain situa- 
tions. Now he was squawking from the stem 
of the whale-boat to be taken aboard — disdain- 
ing any aid to his clipped wings from the na- 


The Lost Galleon 69 

tives, who stood in awe of him as an undoubted 
''devil bird/^ a true kahuna-manu, a witch- 
fowl. 

Jim tossed down the bight of a rope, to which 
the bird clung with beak and claws until he 
gained the deck ; once there, he waddled 
straight to the skipper just emerging from the 
companionway, climbed up his clothes to his 
shoulder, sidled to his tanned and leathery 
cheek and kissed him with a hard but loving 
tongue, gently tweaking the lobe of his ear. 

''You salty son of a gun, Tm glad to see' 
you/’ said the Admiral. 

"You ornery bundle of feathers, thet goes 
double,’’ said the skipper. 

"Here’s somethin’ to interest you, Jim,” he 
continued, as he handed the youth an envelope. 
"Clippin’ from the Tahiti papers. Copied 
from the Los Angeles Times, You can read 
it while me and yore uncle gets to gamming. 
Right in yore line, I reckon.” 

Jim slipped the clipping into the pocket of 
his dungarees for the time being. Half an 


70 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

hour later, while the skipper and Daniel Morse 
were discussing island gossip, he and the Ad- 
miral went away to the grove, where he estab- 
lished himself in the crotch of two close-grow- 
ing palms to read it. 

The skipper had been right. It was in Jim’s 
line, and his eyes widened as he read it through 
for the second and then for the third time. 

Tales of lost treasure, of castaway, golden- 
freighted galleons, are always cropping up, ' 
mostly, alas, in the mouths of unscrupulous ad- 
venturers who seek to float an expedition that, 
at the least, gives them some months of ease 
and importance. But now, from the archives 
of the San Jacinto convent of Luzon, there 
comes to light an authentic, if provokingly ab- 
breviated and not altogether satisfactory, ac- 
count of the loss of one of the floating castles of 
Philip of Spain. These, in the early sixteenth 
century, plied between Spain and the Philip- 
pines, carrying vast stores of gold and pearls 
and gems, as sometime set down in the log of 
The Golden Hynde, the flagship of Sir Francis 
Drake, who occasionally relieved the Dons of 
the trouble of carrying their quintals and bars 
and ingots and all the what-not of their almost 
fabulous cargoes. 


The Lost Galleon 


71 

said Jim. ‘What do you think of 
that, Admiral? Quintals and ingots and bars 
of gold!’’ 

''Goldr repeated the bird, lifting his clipped 
wings and shuffling up and down the trunk. 
'^Gold! Here's a double-eagle^ Looey, treat 
the crowd!” 

Jim went on, reading aloud. 

We quote, translating literally, an extract 
from the monkish manuscript. “The galleon 
San Salvador arrived to-day and her gallant 
commander, Don Ramon y Viera de Lara, 
brings the sad news of the loss of their consort, 
the galleon San Domingo, which has perished 
with all its officers, the good priests Fra Ignacio 
and Fra Pedro (May God rest all their souls!) 
the soldiers, sailors and slaves; also the cargo, 
of great value. A pitiless and mighty storm 
did carry away the mainmast and disable the 
rudder of the San Salvador and still more sadly 
damage the San Domingo, so that for three 
days the two galleons were in the grip of the 
furious winds and a strong, swift current, 
borne far off their course. And, on the even- 
ing of the third day, the gale still unabated, 
despite the prayers of the good priests, Don 
Ramon did see the San Domingo hurled upon 


72 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

the outlying reef of a savage island, himself 
powerless to render aid, so great was the fury 
of the gale. The stormy sun was setting be- 
hind a mount shaped like a miter, in this, its 
first glimpse since the commencement of the 
gale, and, three days later, when Don Ramon 
had made shift to effect repairs, he did strive 
long and ardently to find this same isle in the 
hope that there might be some survivors. 

'‘But, from lack of reckoning and baffled by 
the same swift currents and hampered with a 
makeshift rudder, he did fail to find the place 
and so did reluctantly complete his own voyage 
in safety.’’ 

So now, come all ye romantic adventurers 
and practical mariners, ye have only to locate a 
miter-mount on an islet near the ancient lane of 
these same galleons, allowing for the leeway 
of the gale and estimating the trend of the 
currents and there awaits you this same "cargo 
of great value.” Who will find the galleon San 
Domingo and its precious freight? It is safe 
to say that many will dream of and, perhaps, 
some one essay its recovery. 

Jim looked out between the palm boles, and 
saw a vision of two great galleons a-sailing, 
with their high poops, carven and gilded, their 
lofty prows, their swelling sails with the trail- 
ing pennants topping them, the culverins and 


The Lost Galleon 


73 


cannonades and demi-cannon grinning from the 
tiers of ports, armored figures on their decks ; 
gliding on the tide, gold-freighted, ships of 
a medieval time, sea-castles proclaiming the 
might of Spain. The vision shifted to a stormy 
sunset, a raging sea, one galleon wallowing, 
and, beyond her, backed by a mitered mountain 
and a ruffle of gale-tormented palms, the sis- 
ter ship crashing upon a spouting reef ! 

‘^Gee!’’ exclaimed Jim again. And then, 
‘7iniiny as he thoughtfully folded up the pre- 
cious clipping, captured the Admiral and went 
to seek Captain Burr. 

‘‘No,’’ said the skipper, 'T don't especially re- 
member a miter-mountain, a miter bein', I take 
it, the sort of split crown bishops wear, like 
they have 'em on the chess board ? There's all 
sorts of divided crags, and it all depends from 
the point of view what shape they might strike 
you as havin'. Also, all this was four hun- 
dred years ago. The island might have sunk, 
or, more like, have been twisted all out of shape 
by some eruption. And the galleon might have 


74 Morse, South Sea Trader 

gone to pieces or been sand-covered, or a dozen 
things might have happened to her. That 
newspaper chap is sort of romantic, himself, 
I reckon, in figgerin’ anyone ’ud fit out an ex- 
pedition to find her. Needle in a haystack’s 
a joke beside a job like that.” 

He caught the swift disappointment that 
shadowed Jim’s face. 

''Not that I say it ain’t possible,” he said. 
"We’ll keep an eye out for that miter, you an’ 
me, Jim. There’s no tellin’. But trepangs 
sure and treasure’s mostly found in books.” 

"But there were lots of galleons that never 
turned up,” said Jim, loath to see his dreams 
vanish. "I used to read about them in the 
Bancroft Library at Berkeley, back in Cali- 
fornia. I always was interested in them — 
and in Drake. Gold would keep, and salt 
water couldn’t hurt pearls.” 

"No more it could,” assented Burr soberly. 
"We’re sailing early in the mornin’ to the 
Tonga Group. You keep your eyes peeled an’, 
if you sight a miter-mountain, you an’ me’ll 


The Lost Galleon 


75 


go galleon huntin’, on the off chance. You’ve 
got a say-so in the schooner now, you know.” 

And that night Jim dreamed of quintals and 
of ingots, of golden plate and strings of gleam- 
ing gems. He picked up one mass of jewels 
and it turned into a bird that was the Admiral 
who protested vigorously. 

^^Tumhle out, ye lubbers! Show a legT 
It was the Admiral, sure enough, perched in 
the open window, the sunrise making him in- 
deed a bird of gems. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MITER-MOUNTAIN 

Three weeks later, one night, with the moon 
due to rise, Jim at the wheel, steering by the 
lowest star of the Southern Cross, the skipper 
asleep in the cabin, the Admiral in his shrouded 
cage with his wise head tucked beneath his 
wing, the dreanied-for, the improbable, hap- 
pened. To port, almost abeam, a dim blur 
showed where a lonely island lifted. They 
had been a long while coming up with it, 
though there was a fair breeze across the quar- 
ter and Jim sensed that they were in the grip 
of those mysterious South Sea currents that 
seemed to hold and compel a ship as if, as the 
ancients believed, sea-sirens were guiding it 
to some magic isle. Behind the blur, gradu- 
ally rendering it more distinct, investing it 
slowly with a brightening radiance, the moon 
was slowly rising. 


76 


The Miter-Mountain 


77 


Suddenly the blur became a defined shape, 
a cone, deep-rifted, the shining orb sectioned 
in the cleft. 

It was the miter-mountain! 

Jim needed no second look. He knew it. 
He had known all along the newspaper story 
was going to come true, that they were going 
to find the galleon. 

Jim scuffed a sleeping deck-boy with his foot 
and bade him take the wheel. He darted to 
the open skylight and shouted down, 

^'Oh, Captain Burr! Come up! Please 
come up on deck!'’ 

He heard the pad of the skipper's feet as he 
rolled out of his bunk, and soon Burr rose from 
the companionway, alert. 

His keen old eyes followed the direction of 
Jim's outstretched arm. 

''Shiver my garboard strake !" he said slowly. 
"It's the miter-mountain, sure enough!" 

"And we're in a stiff current," said Jim 
eagerly. "It's been holding us back ever since 
you turned in." 


78 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

^We’re goin’ to get the galleon/’ declared 
Jim firmly. 

Captain Burr, his back toward Jim, winked 
at the moon. 

“We’ll have a try for it, as sure’s you’re 
livin’,” he said. 

On the second afternoon Jim faced the skip- 
per ruefully on the beach of Miter Island. It 
was not of great size, this volcanic upshoot 
from the ocean’s bed, and they had thrice sur- 
veyed its strand and reef for any sign of Jim’s 
Golden Galleon, the San Domingo, 

“It’s tough, Jim,” said Burr, soberly, “but 
I’m feared this ain’t the spot, or else the ship 
has been battered to pieces long ago. Cur- 
rents change and islands shoot up and down. 
The beach is too narrer, ’cept in two or three 
places, for her to have stranded, and we’ve 
poked at all the likely humps. They’s reefs 
reachin’ out all ’round here. Seems like, if 
this had been the place that other ship, the San 
Salvador or whatever it was, would have sure 
got hung up here too.” 


The Miter-Mountain 


79 


Jim dug his toes into the sand dejectedly. 

''I suppose you’re right,” he said. ''Only — 
only — I was sure this was the island. Some- 
thing seemed to tell me so.” 

"Thet often happens when we hope hard 
enough,” said the skipper. "Now, we can’t 
get out of the reef till tide serves an’ thet’s two 
hours yet. What d’ye want to do, Jim ? Take 
another look at one or two places, or catch us 
some fresh fish for supper?” 

"I’ll fish,” said Jim, with disappointment 
lumping in his throat. "We’ve been all over 
it.” Two of the crew helped him shove ofif 
the whaleboat, but he waved them away from 
joining him. He wanted to be alone and fight 
ofif his chagrin. After they sailed from the 
island he was not going to say anything more 
about galleons, or think of them, if he could 
help it. The skipper was right about the 
needle in a haystack. Only ! 

He deftly waggled his steering oar and the 
boat glided over the wonderful marine gar- 
dens of the lagoon, a miniature forest of green 


8o Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

and red and golden growths, sponges here and 
there and the live coral, with shoals of fishes 
of all shapes and hues oaring their ways in 
between the groves. He baited with fresh- 
baked breadfruit for sea-bream, waiting to 
drop his hook into the deepest parts of the 
basin, looking overside as he went. On the 
beach Captain Burr regarded him with a 
friendly, sympathetic glance. 

■ 'It's too darned bad the lad couldn't find his 
galleon," he muttered, and then joined the ever 
somnolent Admiral in a nap. For fifteen min- 
utes he snored resonantly in the shade and then 
jumped up. The native boys were running to 
the water's edge. Jim, far down the lagoon, 
was leaping up and down in the rocking whale- 
boat and shouting something. 

The whaleboat came fast towards the little 
crowd. Jim had got down to business with 
the steering oar. That his eyes were opened to 
twice their normal size was very evident to the 
watchers. 


The Miter-Mountain 8i 

‘Tve found it!’’ he cried as he neared the 
beach. ‘^Tve found the galleon!” 

The skipper and the natives caught the in- 
fection of his voice, and splashed waist-deep 
through the shallows, climbing into the boat, 
where Captain Burr roared his orders and the 
kanakas bowed the oars in their efforts, Jim 
asprawl over 'the stem, peering into the depths. 

'Way enough!” Jim cried, scrambling back. 
"Back water, all !” 

The whaleboat floated almost motionless, 
her way subsiding. Burr snatched up a water- 
glass, a box with the top off and the bottom 
glazed for use in locating oyster beds. 

Far below, yet plain in the translucent water, 
loomed a vast bulk, encrusted, weed-grown. 
A hull half sunk in bottom ooze, a rearing plat- 
form that must once have been the poop and, 
most potent token of all, the stump of a mast, 
wreathed with fronds, barnacled, but still a 
mast, with the crow’s nest mounted on it like a 
vast sea toadstool ! 


82 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Captain Burr reached for Jim’s fishing line 
and tied a heavy sinker to it, plumbing the 
depth. Then he measured ofif the dripping 
cord. 

^‘Eighteen, make it nineteen fathoms,” he 
said. ^^Humph!” 

The ^'humph !” struck on Jim’s tautened 
nerves like a heavy blow. 

'^That isn’t much, is it?” he asked. ^Takua 
can go down to twenty fathoms. He’s done 
it many a time.” 

'To grab a few oysters and risk the bends. 
But not to do any work. And they ain’t many 
Takuas. It’s the galleon, right enough, Jim. 
You’ve located it. But, as she lies, all cluttered 
up and filled with muck, this is an engineerin’ 
job. It’s goin’ to cost money to get at what 
she’s got inside of her, Jim. A heap of 
money.” 

"And we’ve got to get out of this mighty 
quick,” he went on. "Look at that sky. We 
can’t wait the tide. We’ll have to haul out. 
Never mind, Jim, we’ve got the position. We 


The Miter-M ountain 83 

can come back whenever we want to. And 
wedl talk it all over, soon ’s we get clear of 
this land.’’ 

The result of talking it over did not entirely 
suit Jim, but at last he gave in to the skipper’s 
arguments. It would take more money than 
they could lay their hands on, he found, a good 
many thousand dollars, to transport divers and 
lighters and the necessary machinery from Ta- 
hiti to Miter Island. 

They might have to blast the hull apart, the 
captain fancied. In one way and another it 
was a risk. And it would be policy to form a 
company, with the discovery set as an equal in- 
terest against the stockholders’ capital, he de- 
clared. 

‘'It’s your find, Jim-boy,” he said. “You can 
do what you like about it, but that’s my advice. 
They’s plenty men in Tahiti’ll take my word 
for it that we’ve found it and they’ve got the 
money to put up. I’ll see that you get the long 
end of the sharing. We’ll hold out for fifty- 
one per cent. Thirty of that’ll go to you. 


84 Jint Morse, South Sea Trader 

twenty-one to me as part owner in the 
schooner.’’ 

''Me?” protested Jim. "Why, we’re equal 
partners !” And he stuck to it until the skipper 
gave in, resolving, as he had long ago resolved, 
that what he had would eventually go to the 
lad who had taken up permanent quarters in 
his lonely heart. 


CHAPTER VII 


KIDNAPPED 

As the skipper had prophesied, it was not 
hard in that adventurous region to form a 
company with sufficient working capital. The 
project took the fancy of all Tahiti and spread 
around to the Society, the Cook, the Austral 
groups, as far as the Marquesas and the Low 
Archipelago. It was not long before Captain 
Burr was refusing eager, would-be purchasers 
of stock every minute of the day. 

They had passed by Lele Motu on their way 
to Tahiti without calling, for Burr laid down 
the principle that ^'once you locate anything 
good, you can’t keep it secret no-how/’ and they 
wanted to head off, as far as possible, the horde 
of pearl-hunters and other sea-gamblers who 
would scour all Polynesia, if only they got a 
hint of where the Miter Mountain raised its 
cleft. 


85 


86 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Jim had no easy time answering many ques- 
tions and divulging nothing. He was the hero 
of the hour. The skipper had given him all 
credit of the discovery, and the papers had 
written him up and cabled about his find and 
sent long letters to the mainland press. But 
he avoided interviews as much as possible, 
while he waited feverishly for arrangements 
to be perfected for the salvage of the San Do- 
mingo. 

One afternoon, while Captain Burr was 
busy with details, Jim wandered down the 
beach to a little nook, by a waterfall that had 
carved a stairway for itself in the cliff some 
two miles from Tahiti. 

It was hot and the water, splashing merrily 
over its terraces, lulled him from day-dreams 
to a deeper slumber. The dreams faded. A 
nightmare came instead, or a daymare, no less 
horrible. It seemed as if the cliff had fallen 
and buried him. A frightful weight was on 
his chest so that he could hardly breathe. 
Neither could he see. The earth heaved under 


Kidnapped 87 

him, he was lifted up, being carried . . .! 

Then he heard gruff voices and knew he was 
actually being borne swiftly, and none too 
gently, along an upland trail. Branches 
swished across his face. He struggled, but 
his arms and legs were bound, his eyes were 
blindfolded. 

''Quit your wrigglin’, you young imp !” said 
a harsh voice. 

"Give him a tap over the head. Bill,” said 
another. 

But Jim subsided and the threatened blow 
did not come. His wits worked swiftly. He 
had been captured while asleep. Kidnapped! 
By white men. For what? To gain informa- 
tion as to the whereabouts of the galleon, the 
position of Miter Island! 

Captain Burr had pointed out certain rough- 
looking characters to him two days before. 

"They’d scuttle a ship or cut a throat to get 
hold of a find like we got,” said the skipper. 
"All the pirates ain’t dead yet, Jim. Give ’em 
a wide berth.” 


88 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

And now they had caught him napping ! He 
burned with shame. He was trussed, help- 
less! But he was not going to let them get 
away with it. Not even if . . . ! 

Captain Burr would miss him, would guess 
what had happened, he reasoned. They would 
search the island for him. They would surely 
find some trail. All he had to do was to 
hold out. He set his jaw and willed himself 
to endurance. It was his galleon, and, boy 
though he was, he would not give up the 
secret. 

How long they traveled he could not tell, 
but they climbed constantly, and he could guess 
by the smells that they were in deep forest. 
The men carrying him grumbled as they some- 
times tripped over vines. At last they set him 
on his feet and took the bandana from his eyes. 
Some one loosened his ankles. 

^'Keep yore eyes front,’' said a black-bearded, 
broad-shouldered man who seemed to be the 
leader. He was one of the men the skipper 
had warned him against, a Captain Frost, 


Kidnapped 89 

known as a blackbirder, a man who recruited 
labor from unwilling islands, a smuggler, a 
crooked gamester. ''And walk up!'’ 

Jim's legs were numb from the tight cords, 
but he did his best, and they went along a nar- 
row bush-trail that traversed the shoulder of 
a mountain thick with tropical growth. They 
passed above the trees to barren slopes of fire- 
scarred rock, fissured and grottoed. A nar- 
row pass opened and they went through to a 
bowl set between tall precipices where grew 
short turf and a few scanty shrubs. There 
was a spring of water in the middle of the 
bowl. Before the dark mouth of a cave in 
one cliff a man was tending a fire. 

"Got him?" he gloated. "Good work. 
Frosty!" 

Frost scowled. 

"Cut out names. We'll get right down to 
business," he said. "Get the kid in the cave, 
ril talk to him." 

Jim was hustled into the gloomy hollow and 
his feet tied once more. His hands were still 


90 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

bound. ''Now then/' said Frost, "you ain’t 
nobody’s fool, buddy. You know what we’re 
after. Sooner you come through, the better 
for all parties.” 

Jim had been thinking what he should say, 
and he answered without hesitation. 

"You want the position of the island,” he 
said. "I don’t know it. Captain Burr took 
the reckonings. I . . .” 

Frost cuffed him heavily. 

"None of that,” he said. "We know what 
we’re doin’. Don’t you lie to us or . . . 
Savvy?” He made a swift gesture across his 
throat. "We aim to get that loot,” he said, 
"an’ we’re goin’ to get it.” He took out of his 
pocket a little bundle of papers, clippings of 
press-print, Jim noticed. 

"This here,” said Frost, "is every word that 
has been printed in Tahiti about the San 
Domingo. Fve got ’em by heart. Fll give 
’em to you for a scrapbook,” he went on sar- 
donically. "And, in one of ’em, your friend 
Burr tells what a bright youngster you are and 


Kidnapped 91 

how you sighted the island and spotted the 
galleon in the lagoon and how you're a partner 
of his and actin' first mate. An' how you've 
took to navigation so's you can run the 
schooner almost as good as him. 

''Some of it may be guff, but he comes out 
strong about the navigation. What's more, 
you've owned up to it to a dozen men. 
Bragged a bit, I reckon. So don't you lie to 
me about you not knowin' the position or," 
he glanced out of the cave to where the others 
sat about the fire, "I'll toast your feet first an' 
slit your windpipe afterwards, if you don't 
come through." 

"If you kill me, you won't find out about the 
galleon," said Jim stoutly, though his courage 
quailed at the man's leering ferocity. 

"You might beg off bein' killed afore we're 
halfway through with it," said the ruffian. 
"An' we might be a bit disappointed, if you 
should be stubborn too long. Your outfit 
starts pretty soon, an' we aim to get a start 
on it. They ain't no copyright on thet island. 


92 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

If we gets there first, we’ll hold our own. We 
ain’t over gentle,- none of us, an’, if you dis- 
appointed us, I say, we might kill you, just out 
of cussedness.” 

‘'Hurry up there. Frost,” broke in one of the 
men, of whom they were ten in all. “Give him 
the third degree.” 

Frost took no notice of the interruption. 

“Come through, buddy,” he said. 

“And if I tell you,” asked Jim, “what are 
you going to do with me?” 

“Now that’s more sensible. Sloane, the chap 
who was here when we came up, is goin’ 
to entertain you till we come back. It’s 
a nice quiet spot, but kinder lonely. We 
had a lot of trouble pickin’ it out. There’s a 
lookout to sea, savvy? Sloane’s got a glass 
and he’ll keep watching for us. We won’t 
come in too close, but we’ll set a signal. When 
he gets a signal that the dope you handed out is 
right, you go free. If the dope is wrong 
. . . ?” His pause was more effective than 
any threat. 


Kidnapped 93 

Jim shut his eyes and braced himself. Then 
he opened them again. 

'T won’t tell you/’ he said. ''You don’t 
dare to kill me. They’ll find it out some time 
and they’ll find you out. There are too many 
big men in this. They’ll get you some day.” 

In the half light of the cave he could see that 
his words were not without their effect. Frost 
scowled. 

"Oh, we don’t dare, don’t we?” he mocked. 
"For a tenth of what is in that galleon I’d 
croak a dozen. And my mates is that kind, 
too, you can lay to that.” 

But he went out and talked the matter over 
in low tones. Jim, trying to think, could hear 
them arguing and quarreling. He figured 
that the story of setting a signal was false. 
They would probably tell Sloane to hold 
him a few days, then let him go. But 
Sloane would have to join his fellows without 
danger from Jim’s information. The best way 
he could twist it, it looked grim. He listened 
closely, but he could not distinguish many 


94 Morse, South Sea Trader 

words. The will of Frost evidently domi- 
nated them and presently the latter came back 
into the cave. 

''We’re goin’ to have some grub,” he said. 
"Just to show you we aim to be on the square 
with you, if you come through, we’re goin’ to 
give you some grub, too. You eat an’ think it 
over. We’re heatin’ some stones in the fire 
an’ they ain’t for cookin’ grub. They’re for 
warmin’ cold feet. Now tuck into this.” 

He laid down a couple of bananas and some 
cold meat, with a tin cup of hot coffee. It was 
cold on the heights and the smell of the coffee 
was good to Jim, thought he felt he could not 
eat anything solid. Frost undid his hands and 
then untied his feet. 

"You can’t get away,” he said grimly. 
"Don’t try it.” 

Left alone, Jim sipped at the coffee. The 
little bundle of clippings lay close by, and he 
idly looked at them while the men ate outside. 
It was still light enough to read, and, as the 
package fell apart, he saw the familiar head- 


Kidnapped 95 

lines of the original article taken from the Los 
Angeles Times. He knew it by heart, he 
thought, but, almost unconsciously, he read it 
over. And then a dim memory strengthened, 
something he had read in the Bancroft Li- 
brary, long ago came back to him, little by 
little. He sat up, centering his will upon the 
recollection until he was sure of it. 

Sloane came into the cave with Frost carry- 
ing two flat slabs of lava carefully balanced on 
two smaller flat pieces. He set them down so 
close to Jim that the latter could feel their 
glowing heat. 

'TIow about it?’^ demanded Frost, and his 
tone was final. 

‘^ril tell you,’^ said Jim. Frost nodded. 

'That’s the stuff. Better not lie, though, 
sonny. Fm warnin’ you.” 

"Fm telling you the truth,” said Jim. His 
voice carried conviction even to that distrust- 
ful company. Sloane had gone out with the 
news and now they crowded into the cave. 


g 6 Jim Moi^se, South Sea Trader 

darkening in the failing light, eager to hear 
the figures that meant so much to them. 

^It was 22' 37" South. i68' 19" West,’’ 
said Jim. 

Frost repeated the figures, going to the cave- 
mouth to jot them down, then checking them 
a second time. 

“That’s right,’’ said Jim. The men com- 
menced to talk excitedly until Frost stopped 
them. 

“Come on,’’ he ordered. “I reckon thet’s 
the straight goods. If it ain’t, we’ll skin this 
young liar alive when we git back. An’ I’ll 
see thet the job’s done right,’’ he added. 
“Sloane, you know yore job. No time to 
waste, boys.’’ 

Sloane stood in the cave mouth watching 
them go. The light was going rapidly in the 
bowl surrounded by the high mountain walls. 
In a few minutes it would be dark, save for 
the starlight. In an hour or so the moon 
would rise. Sloane turned and came back into 


Kidnapped 97 

the cave. He seemed elated, even good- 
natured, at the thought of his share in the 
treasure. 

''You were a wise kid to come through,’’ he 
said. "Frost would sure have scraped. the 
hide off ye. Better eat thet grub, hadn’t ye?” 

"I don’t want to eat,” said Jim. 

"Ye don’t ? Then stick out yore hands. I’ll 
let you run round a bit, if you behave yoreself, 
daytimes while I’m awake, but, when I sleeps, 
you get tied up. Now yore feet. I’m goin’ 
to snooze out there by the fire. I’ll fetch you 
a blanket.” This he did, and then curled him- 
self up by the fire. Jim did not stir for a few 
minutes; then he turned over, shifting the 
blanket that he was powerless to adjust. The 
scent of burning wool instantly assailed his 
nostrils, and he rolled back again, sitting up 
cautiously and looking out at Sloane. Appar- 
ently his guard had gone to sleep. Hope 
leaped up in Jim. He was confident that he 
had sent Frost and his gang away on a fool’s 
errand and he had trusted to escape from 


98 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Sloane before they could return, and the chance 
had come without delay. 

The odor of burning wool came from the 
frowsy blanket, scorching on the hot stones 
brought in by Sloane. Lava as they were, 
and picked for their heating qualities, they still 
retained most of their heat. 

Jim hitched himself as close to them as he 
dared, fearful of rousing Sloane, and held his 
wrists to the blunt edge of one of the stones. 
The heat scorched his hands and wrists, but it 
scorched the rope as well. He was forced to 
make three efforts, while great blisters formed 
on his skin, but, at last, the charred rope fell 
apart. Swiftly and painfully h^ untied his 
ankle cords and then, free, lay down again and 
pulled the blanket over him. Sloane might not 
be asleep, and, anyway, he wanted to wait for 
the light of the moon before attempting the 
steep trail to the sea. 

After long waiting the sky showed that the 
moon had risen. The bowl was dark, but out- 
side its wall the land would be flooded with 


Kidnapped 99 

light. And Sloane was snoring. Jim was 
wearing rubber sneakers, and, inch by inch, he 
worked out of the cave. Sloane stirred rest- 
lessly and Jim froze. The kidnapper had 
somehow tossed aside his blanket and the nip 
of the mountain air was disturbing his 
slumber. He lay on his back, one arm flung 
wide. At his right side, nearest Jim, the 
handle of a pistol showed in a holster, some 
bit of metal work reflecting the fire. He was 
in Jim’s path, and Jim, seeing that Sloane’s 
awakening was imminent, forced the issue. 
Bent double, he advanced. A coal fell in the 
embers and a little flame leaped up. It was 
reflected in the eyes of Sloane, drowsily open- 
ing. 

In a flash Jim stooped, snatched the pistol 
from the holster and started for the narrow 
opening to the bowl, as Sloane, half stupidly, 
got to his feet, unable to realize as yet that the 
lad he had so carefully bound was free and es- 
caping. With a savage roar he lunged after 
his late prisoner. He was a lean man and 


100 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

long-legged and, fast as Jim flew, Sloane gained 
on him, racing at an angle to cut him off at the 

gap. 

Jim turned, pistol in hand. 

‘'Stop, or ril shoot he cried. Sloane 
laughed and came on, risking Jim’s marksman- 
ship. At the flash of the gun he jumped high 
and to one side but fell groaning. Jim’s bullet 
had hit him just above the knee. 

Jim walked cautiously to the writhing man 
and saw the nature of the injury. It was se- 
rious but not dangerous, he decided. 

‘Til send some one up for you, Sloane,” he 
said. The wounded man replied with a volley 
of curses, and Jim left him. It was no easy 
task to work through the jungle, but he knew 
he had only to keep downward to make the 
beach at last, and, save when he plunged into 
dark forest, the moon helped. He hobbled 
into Tahiti near dawn. He and Burr had been 
staying aboard their schooner at night, so Jim 
borrowed a shore canoe and put off. There 
was no light aboard the vessel, no natives were 


Kidnapped loi 

on the deck, no one was in the cabin ; there was 
only the Admiral in his cage, covered with his 
night-cloth. 

Jim lit the swinging lamp, and the Admiral 
squawked; he found some food, dressed his 
blistered hand with grease and flour and then 
turned into his own bunk. He had slept about 
five minutes, it seemed, when he was shaken 
by the shoulder and the gruff voice of Captain 
Burr, a bit tremulous, was greeting him. 

''We been out all night searchin’ for you, 
son,’’ said the skipper. "Four parties of us. 
An’ me cornin’ home, all busted-up, to find you 
asleep in yore own bunk! Where in Time 
have you been?” 

Jim told him. 

"We’ll send up for Sloane,” said the skipper, 
grimly. "An’ we’ll overhaul Mr. Frost in the 
Commissioner’s launch. You did right to give 
’em the position, Jim. They’d have murdered 
you.” 

"I didn’t give it to them because I was 
afraid,” said Jim. "At least, I was afraid,” 


102 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

he corrected, ''but I wasn’t going to tell until I 
happened to think of something. I didn’t 
hope to get away so soon, of course. . . .” 

"All’s well that ends well,” said the skipper. 
"We’ll beat ’em to it, easy.” 

Jim grinned. 

"I think we’d better let them go ahead,” he 
said. " But we’ll have to call our company 
off.” Burr looked at him in puzzled fashion. 

"They didn’t clip you over the head, did 
they?” he asked anxiously. 

"Oh, I’m not cracked,” replied Jim cheer- 
fully. "But I’m mighty glad Frost left those 
clippings in the cave, or we’d have spent a lot 
of other people’s money for nothing. I told 
you I’d read a good bit about those galleons. 
Well, sir, it wasn’t till I read that first article 
through again that I remembered something. 

"You see, those two galleons were going to 
the Philippines, not from them. And the gold 
and pearls came from the Philippines. What 
they took there made up a 'cargo of great 
value’ all right, but not valuable to us, or to 


Kidnapped 103 

Frost and Company. You see, Captain Burr, 
the outward-bound galleons all stopped at 
South American ports and took on cargo of 
cinchona bark that grows there and was in- 
valuable in the Philippines for curing fevers; 
worth its weight in gold, maybe. Anyway, the 
San Domingo was laden with quinine ^ and 
Frost is welcome to what is left of it after four 
hundred years, isn’t he?” 

Captain Burr stared and gaped and burst 
into a great guffaw. 

''Now that’s what comes from bein’ a 
scholar,” he said. "Shiver my garboard 
strake, if that ain’t a joke! Qui-nine — and 
them racing for gold!” 

''Goldr shrieked the Admiral, true to form. 
''Gold! Gold! Gold! Set 'em up again, 
Looey, the treat's on me!" 


CHAPTER VIII 

FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS 

said Captain Burr, ‘VeVe got a 
chance to make a little extra money before we 
start on the regular trip, taking a couple of 
dozen blackbirds back to their home island. 
Good money in it, but not much trouble. 
What d’ye say?” 

It was great to be consulted like that, even 
if one was mate and actual partner in the 
schooner Manuwai, south-sea trader. Jim 
knew that he was both big and handy for his 
sixteen years, but he was fully conscious that, 
outside of a growing ability to handle the 
Manuzvai and a certain knack of bossing the 
kanaka crew, he was a good deal of a green- 
horn. This very proposition proved it. How 
there could be much money in shipping black- 


104 


Four and Twenty Blackbirds 105 

birds back to their home island, he could not 
see. If it had been parrots, now, like the Ad- 
miral, aswing and asleep in his cage that hung 
from the forward preventer-stay — but black- 
birds? 

There were a good many fine qualities about 
Jim Morse, or he would not have been chum- 
ming with Captain Burr, nor mate of the 
Manuwai. One of those qualities was Jim’s 
lack of false pride and his willingness to ask 
questions. The two things go together very 
largely. 

‘'Are they valuable?” he asked. “Do they 
sing?” 

A twinkle grew in the skipper’s one eye, till 
it looked like a brightening star at twilight. 
He slapped his thigh with a hairy hand and 
leaned forward till his beard swept his knees. 

“I got to laff, Jim,” he said, as his tan 
turned to crimson. “I got to lafif — or bust! 
Do they sing? Shiver my garboard strake, 
but that’s a good un I” 

He broke out into a guffaw that awoke the 


io6 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

somnolent kanakas, snoozing forward in the 
shadow of the rail, and brought a protest from 
the Admiral, rudely roused from his siesta. 

''Look out,'' screamed the parrot. "Tumble 
up, you monkey-faced sons of swabs, here 
comes a squall!" 

Jim’s own face was red, but the skipper’s 
good-nature was irresistible, and he joined in 
the laughter, though he knew it was against 
himself. Tears dimmed the sparkle of the 
captain’s solitary eye, and he wiped it as the 
end of his guffaws rumbled away in his throat, 

‘‘Son,” he said, “these blackbirds wear feath- 
ers all right, but only in their hair, as a gen’ral 
rule, but they ain’t no Carusos among ’em. 
Ye see the plantations are always hard put to 
it for labor, and, from ’way back, some folks 
has made a specialty of supplyin’ it. Re- 
cruitin’ they call it. They ain’t always been 
partickler — and no more has the plantations — 
where the recruits come from or how willin’ 
they was to sign contracts. These recruiters 
called the kanakas, they picked off the beaches, 



The gfreat seas, hissinj? and cresting, surged up before his eyes, racing in, bearing them 

like a cork in a mill race. See page 8 




A 


^ J 


«■! ^ j5*-I 




*1 



’^WJ 


■' ■-■ , .-m 




.. -: 

n .:' . ' 


*' * 


.' yA^V , i •,. 


•* ■■ ■ ’ 

y. 

'** .j 

• _ - •• *fc 


. •* '» 


•!* 




l 4 


/ ' ►,i#. f 


fl > 



I t 


i/ 







v-^; .^' '‘f ■' j^ii^;’*- ’''' ^ '*» 

* ■ * t*!? ' ■‘ ’ ‘ ¥ 1 **' \ •' 






-n 






i-r^ ... u^'>- ,.. 


i ^ 

A. ; 


1 li * 

-.1 i;’«r 


lA . ^ 


*>-c 




«4k 





Four and Twenty Blackbirds 107 

^blackbirds/ Something like the old slave 
days back in the States, it used to be. 

“A schooner sails up to an atoll, and either 
coaxes the natives aboard, gets ’em below an’ 
claps hatches on ’em, or else herds ’em red- 
handed with guns for persuaders. You may 
lay to it that the skipper that lands a bunch 
from one island don’t go back to it in a hurry. 
He wouldn’t be welcome an’ they might be 
waitin’ for him. Another schooner might 
come along, though, and run into trouble. 
Take it full and by, it was kind of excitin’ and 
sort of risky, Tlackbirding’ was. 

''Government control has altered things a 
bit. You mustn’t force your laborer, and he 
has to be signed up before the Commissioner, 
reg’lar, with a contract for so much and so 
many years and a clause and a forfeit to see him 
landed back on his home island at the end of 
the contract. The Kualipe Plantation has 
four and twenty of ’em all ready to be paid 
off and delivered, and we can get the job. 
They’ll live on deck an’ . . .” 


io8 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

He broke off. Jim was perched on the af- 
ter rail singing softly, so as not to miss what 
the skipper was saying, 

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye. 
Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie. 
When the pie was opened, the birds began to 
sing; 

Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the 
king? 

Captain Burr grinned and scratched his 
beard. 

ain’t heard that since I was knee-high to 
myself,” he said. ‘'But in the old days, Jim, 
when things went wrong, it wasn’t the black- 
birds that got baked and it wasn’t blackbirds 
that got served up to the king.” 

“You mean?” Jim’s gray eyes were round 
with excitement. 

“Long pig! Sometimes the natives got the 
recruiters instead of t’other way round. 
Then they’d make pig out of ’em in the stone 
ovens. Take a look at that companion. See 
them slashes?” 


Four and Twenty Blackbirds 109 

Jim nodded. He had seen them before, 
deep cuts in the frame of the hooded opening 
to the cabin stairs. 

'The floors was worse,” said the skipper. 
"Splintered up from the outside and shot 
through from the inside. I did the shooting. 
They was a deck full of Malaita fuzzyheads 
tryin’ to persuade me to come out, with axes 
and clubs and spears. The Manuwai got on 
a reef, tryin^ to make out of the lagoon on a 
flood tide, we bein’ in a bit of a hurry. And, 
when you get on the reef in those latitudes, it’s 
touch an’ go, most usually 'go.’ If the bark- 
entine Dolphin hadn’t been to loo’ard and 
heard the shootin’. I’d have been served up 
like one of them blackbirds you were singin’ 
about. Fortunately I had my skylights 
grated over but ever since then I’ve always 
carried a little dynamite and some caps an’ 
fuses. It comes in handy for reef-blastin’ or 
for gettin’ a mess of mullet, and it sure does 
discourage a gang of rampagin’, bloodthirsty 
kai-kais (man-eaters).” 


no Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Jim ran his finger down the grooves made 
by the hatchets of the savages, visualizing the 
scene, the yelling natives with their lime-dyed 
hair, frizzed in fan-shape, the ragged lobes of 
their ears stretched with shell circles till they 
touched their shoulders, naked save for strips 
of barkcloth, teeth filed triangularly, like the 
sharks' teeth that studded their weapons. He 
wondered whether Captain Burr had been a 
recruiter and ached to ask him. They told all 
sorts of tales about Captain Burr on the Tahiti 
waterfront, called him a ‘'one-eyed old pirate," 
a “pearl poacher," and other epithets, but Jim 
knew him as a genial, unselfish, generous and 
eminently capable trader-skipper, and took the 
stories with a grain of salt. Burr’s eye was 
twinkling again. 

“Tell you the whole yarn some day, son," 
he said. “Tell you how I lost my eye, too. 
Some day I wore it out lookin’ for the long end 
of bargains." He chuckled. “What do you 
say about the blackbirds? We have to take 
’em to Tanavau, that’s midway between the 


Ill 


Four and Tzvenfy Blackbirds 

Tongas and the Fijis. The natives claim they 
don’t belong to either group. Anyway, it 
don’t take us far off our route, and they’s good 
money in it.” 

''Sounds like good business to me,” said 
Jim. "Do we have to ship extra grub for 
them ?” 

"Poz, cocoanuts and dried fish fixes ’em. 
They’ll supply their own. Bring it aboard 
with ’em from the plantation. They’ll be 
ready for us when we make Kualipe Landing 
to-morrow ’long about noon.” 

Jim decided that the "landing” at Kualipe 
was misnamed. There was only an open 
roadstead where blind breakers tumbled over 
the reef and left but the narrowest of openings 
for a whaleboat to pass perilously where the 
holding ground was treacherous and the shore 
alee. The plantation lands were low, with 
pineapples growing vigorously in red soil, and, 
back of them, the cocoanut groves. The Man- 
uwai cruised off-and-on, after Captain Burr 
had run a signal up to the main spreaders. 


1 12 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

Presently, Jim saw a crowd of natives cluster- 
ing on the beach, milling about some central 
core of commotion. A white man in cotton 
ducks came down and broke up the meeting. 
A whaleboat was launched, packed with ka- 
nakas who crowded the rowers and stood up 
gesticulating and shouting to their fellows, as 
the latter dashed deep into the shore surf and 
tossed aboard supplies while giving farewell 
messages. 

At last the boat broke away from its cordon 
and came over the crested water like some 
great water-striding insect, Jim’s elevation on 
the deck of tht schooner allowing him to see 
over the reef breakers. At the narrow en- 
trance he lost sight of the boat in a smother 
of foam from which it emerged half-swamped, 
the excited homeseekers yelling at the top of 
their lusty lungs. 

Captain Burr’s own voice overtopped the 
noise of the Tanavauans as he superintended 
their boarding the Manuwai, He knew their 
dialect and soon reduced them to some sort of 


Four and Twenty Blackbirds 113 

control as the whaleboat rose and fell in the 
heavy groundswell. 

''Look out, you lubbers,'' he shouted to the 
oarsmen, "you'll scrape all the paint oif my 
planks! Get them fenders out, Jim. Billi- 
Boy, chuck 'em a line! Hey, you — you chat- 
tering kekko (monkey) with the steering-oar, 
be careful, or I’ll plenty quick make some trou- 
ble walk alongside you. And you," — he 
switched back to Tanavauan, — and Jim could 
not follow him. Whatever his order was, it 
was disregarded. Like so many sheep follow- 
ing a senseless, stubborn leader, they made 
frantic leaps for the rail of the schooner as 
the whaleboat lifted on a wave. Some gained 
it, the rest fell short. The skipper frowned, 
but Jim had to laugh at the scene of mad con- 
fusion. Calabashes of poi, cocoanuts, bun- 
dles of dried fish, personal belongings wrapped 
in gaudy bandanas, were being hurled from 
the boat over the rail of the Manuwai. Tan- 
avau natives were clutching at ropes flung by 
the schooner's crew, clambering up and over 


1 14 Morse, South Sea Trader 

the freeboard, jabbering, their mouths open 
and their eyes white-circled. 

'‘Cast off there, Billi-Boy!’’ ordered the skip- 
per. “Jim, herd that bunch up for’ard and 
run a line across the deck abaft the foremast, 
ril tell 'em something presently that’ll keep 
’em tother side of it. More trouble than ship- 
pin’ a whole menagerie, ’n’ I did that once.” 

Jim drove them forward without much 
trouble, though they were a savage-looking 
pack, and Billi-Boy, boatswain and quarter- 
master to the Manuwai, saw that their belong- 
ings were given them, whereupon they started 
to sort them while the schooner fell off into the 
wind and nosed away from Kualipe towards 
the open sea. Captain Burr called Billi-Boy 
to the wheel and beckoned to Jim. 

“Here is where the Admiral comes in use- 
ful,” he said. “Bring him along, son. I’ll 
put the fear of something into their hearts 
that’ll make ’em behave. I’m goin’ to tell them 
the Admiral is a devil-devil bird, which ain’t 
so far from the truth when he’s peevish, an’ 


Four and Twenty Blackbirds 115 

that he’ll watch ’em and report to me all they 
do an’ all they think. Wait till they hear him 
talk. Now seize him up in the forestays with 
a bit of marlin.” 

Jim secured the cage, and the gaudy Ad- 
miral, in his uniform of green and crimson and 
gold, sidled across his perch to the wires where 
he looked down upon the natives, listening to 
the skipper’s forceful harangue, with a head 
cocked to one side, as if harkening to instruc- 
tions. The eyes of the islanders rolled in his 
direction fearfully, and then Captain Burr 
spoke to the parrot in Tanavau. The Admiral 
bobbed his jeweled head up and down three 
times solemnly, half-opened his wings and 
flapped them. 

''Look out” he shrilled. "Look out, you 
silly swabs, look out for squalls!” 

The islanders, through their late foremen 
on the plantation, knew some beach-English, 
enough to recognize some of the words and all 
of the inference of the Admiral’s adjuration. 
Here was a devil-devil bird indeed! A bird 


ii6 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

that understood and listened and talked, oh, a 
very great devil-devil bird ! They shuffled un- 
easily before they finally heeled down on their 
haunches, and Jim smiled many times that 
afternoon as he saw first one and then another 
casting fearful glances at the feathered wizard 
who, for his part, kept his eye cocked on them 
watchfully, out of a curiosity that they took 
for obedience to his master's orders. 


CHAPTER IX' 


THE ADMIRAL AND TROUBLE 

The weather held fair as they headed up 
for Tanavau, with the south-east trade blow- 
ing steadily across on their quarter, and the 
islanders settled down contentedly enough, dis- 
turbed only when Billi-Boy and his assistants 
flushed the foredeck with buckets of brine, for 
the men from Tanavau were a shiftless, dirty 
lot, and, as the skipper said to Jim, 

'Tis a good thing for us the wind’s aft, 
for, if we sailed closehauled, we’d have to bathe 
every mother’s son of ’em !” 

But on the fifth day one of the passengers 
complained of being ill, refused to eat and 
curled up in the bows like a sick and friendless 
dog. The rest gathered round him, muttering. 
Jim had the deck and the wheel for the first 
dog-watch, from four until six in the after- 


ii8 Jim Morse j South Sea Trader 

noon, and heard them begin to chant a weird 
strain that somehow got on his nerves. He 
called Billi-Boy and asked him what the trouble 
was. Billi-Boy went forward and reported 
back. 

‘Too much trouble I think along those black 
fellah !” Billi was a brown-skinned Polynesian 
himself and held all western, and darker, tribes 
in haughty contempt. “One fella there I think 
pretty soon he mate (die). Too much sick he 
think himself, too much trouble walk along his 
belly. My word, suppose he mate, too much 
trouble along us, I think. Better you speak 
with the kapitani.” 

Jim handed over the wheel to the competent 
Billi and went below to the skipper, who him- 
self was not very well, and who had turned in 
after taking thirty grains of quinine to offset 
an attack of intermittent island fever and ague. 
Pie looked grave at Jim’s news. 

“I was afraid of something like that,” he 
said. “Those chaps haven’t any backbone. 
I’ll go up and see what I can do. Get me my 


The Admiral and Trouble 119 

medicine chest. A little ginger and calomel 
dl sometimes buck ’em up. Main thing is to 
persuade ’em the medicine is strong enough. 
Good thing my spell of fever’s over.” 

Jim followed him up on deck and into the 
bows. It was a good two hours yet to sunset 
and the light held, but the wind was already 
failing with the close of day, and the schooner 
slipped through the water with little noise. 
The chant was monotonously going on, and the 
islanders, squatted in a three-quarters’ circle 
about the sick man, looked up sullenly at the 
whites. They would not answer the skipper, 
and the sick man refused to do anything but 
moan and turn his face to the rail. The cap- 
tain tried in vain to make him take the dose he 
offered. At last one of the men spoke, lashing 
himself into a temper, and, at the end of his 
tirade, throwing out his arm with a vindictive 
gesture to where the Admiral swung in the 
stays. 

‘Take down the bird, Jim,” said Captain 
Burr, and Jim caught a note of concern in his 


120 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

voice that was unusual. He got the cage and 
both went aft. 

'That kanaka is going to die/’ said the skip- 
per. 

"What’s the matter with him?” asked Jim. 

"Whatever it is makes no difference,” re- 
plied Burr. "Probably got plain bellyache, but 
he thinks the Admiral has bewitched him and 
he has made up what he calls his mind that he 
is going to pass in his checks and they ain’t no 
doctor on earth could cure one of ’em, once 
they get that way. They just quit. No more 
gumption than a broken-backed dogfish ! 

"But the worst of it is this, Jim. We’ve 
taken contract to deliver them at their island 
and they’ve got to be taken there. Now, 
they’s a law among these blackbird islanders 
thet is about the same as the law Moses laid 
down, a life for a life and a tooth for a tooth 
and so on. On’y they render it this way, a head 
for a life. Pervidin’ they can get it. And 
they’ll try their derndest. If they’s any miss- 
ing from a party taken from one of the beaches 


The Admiral and Trouble 12 1 

when they're brought back, no matter what he 
died of, nor how you may try to fix it, thet 
loss is chalked up against the white men in 
general and against the party makin' the de- 
livery in partickler. Thet was what they 
tackled me for, time the Dolphin come along. 
The count on Malaita was shy several heads 
and they allowed mine might help to even the 
tally. 

''This chap's goin' to die, spite of all we can 
do. I'm afraid. Even if we got him ashore 
alive, he'd swear he'd been bewitched by the 
Admiral, and they'd chalk up one against the 
papalangi (foreigners). It's a serious mat- 
ter, Jim, and I'm sorry I let you in for it. Not 
that I'm afraid of 'em, unless something goes 
almighty wrong, but they's always a risk. 
Your head an' mine is better on our shoulders 
than swingin' in a smokehouse for trophies. 
And, aside from that, don't forget the baking 
parties." 

He scratched his beard and looked at Jim 
with his one eye clouded. 


122 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

^WeVe got to deliver them, haven’t we?” 
asked Jim. 

''Sure. We can’t take ’em back to Kualipe 
or any other plantation under the law, now 
♦ their contracts are closed. No man in his 
senses would take the deal off our hands with 
that sick one for’ard.” 

"Well,” said Jim, "this is the way I think 
about it. You’re not worrying on your own 
account, but on mine. This isn’t the first time 
you’ve had trouble on the beaches and you 
know how to handle such things. I’m not 
afraid, with you. I suppose we can trust Billi- 
Boy and the rest of our men. I don’t see what 
else there is to do. We can’t keep on sailing. 
We might set them adrift in one of our boats 
in sight of the island, but I’d hate to go back 
and have them tell Uncle Daniel, or any one 
else for that matter, that we were afraid to 
carry out our contract. And the boat would 
be a loss. Let’s go through with it.” 

The skipper caught Jim’s fist in his own 
brawny, horny paw and nearly crushed it. 


The Admiral and Trouble 123 

knew it/' he said. have banked on 

it, but I wanted to hear you say it. The on'y 
thing that worries me, Jim, is my fever. It's 
got so of late, 'round this season of the year, 
it don't give me much warnin', an', when it 
comes. I'm just a scaked rag till it goes. You 
know that. If I should have a bad spell come 
on me while the Manuwai was in the lagoon, 
you’d have to take hold. Meantime we'll make 
our preparations. Whatever happens, we got 
to keep any of 'em from cornin' aboard. We'll 
start on that work to-morrer." 

'The man may not die," Jimmy suggested. 
Captain Burr only shrugged his shoulders, but 
the Admiral suddenly screamed, 

''Die, die? Never say die, my lad, never 
say dieT 

"They say thet bird talks automatic, 'thout 
thinkin', like a talkin' machine," said the skip- 
per. "But you'll note he's always got the right 
record handy for the occasion. Ain't you, you 
horn-beaked, button-eyed son of a sea-bird?" 
He opened the door of the cage and the Ad- 


124 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

miral waddled out and clambered to the skip- 
per’s shoulder, where he tweaked at his mas- 
ter’s ear with careful mandibles and his tongue, 
gently clucking. Jim got him a banana, peel- 
ing it for him, and the Admiral put out one 
long-toed claw for the titbit. 

Jim woke up well towards the end of the mid- 
dle watch. This Billi-Boy ordinarily held, 
Jim taking the first morning watch from four 
until eight, until relieved for breakfast by one 
of the crew. Something had brought him out 
of a sound sleep, all standing. The skipper 
was snoring in his own bunk. For a second 
or two Jim stood sleepily, wondering what 
time it was. Then an eerie, ghostly wail, of 
high-pitched, concerted voices, told him what 
had awakened him. He had never heard the 
sound before, but he sensed what it was, the 
blackbird islanders wailing for their dead. 

''Au-we! Au-we, ta Riatiki rndteT 

{Alas, alas, for Riatiki, who is dead!) 

Jim went on deck in his pajamas. Billi- 


The Admiral and Trouble 125 

Boy was at the wheel, bulking dark against the 
sky, where the stars were still bright. There 
was but little wind and the sheets had been in- 
hauled. That taut canvas screened effectually 
the foredeck whence came the intermittent 
funeral chant. 

'Tlenty pilikea (trouble) come along by- 
and-by quick, I think,’’ said Billi in a whisper. 

The schooner surged quietly along, spread- 
ing a wake of phosphorescence, the cordage 
gently creaking, the homely sound of the skip- 
per’s snore ascending through the open sky- 
light. The native crew lay about amidships, 
but Jim knew they were not asleep, but listen- 
ing for the repetitions of the wailing. It came 
again, and Jim, in the cool air, shivered a little. 
They sound like South Sea banshees, he told 
himself. 

‘'You’re not afraid, are you, Billi-Boy?” he 
asked aloud. 

“Me? Me afraid that kind of black fella? 
What kind of foolish talk you speak along of 
me? I speak pilikea come, all same I say big 


126 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

wind he come. Billi not afraid. Not much, 
I jolly you/’ 

Jim took over the wheel at eight bells, and, 
an hour later, the skipper came on deck, as the 
sudden dawn was breaking. He walked for- 
ward and came back frowning. 

^‘Black looks from our blackbirds,” he said. 
‘'We should raise Tanavau some time to-mor- 
rer morning. Around noon, if the weather 
don’t change. Meantime, we’ll get busy.” 

To the accompaniment of the death-chant, 
kept up hour after hour, the crew of the Manu- 
wai set up stanchions along the rail, where Jim 
noticed that there were places all ready to re- 
ceive them, and a bale of barbed wire was 
broken out from the hold. Three strands of 
this raised a formidable fence about the ship, 
necessitating a reef in both main and fore to 
clear it with the booms. Rifles were brought 
up, oiled and laid on the skylight aft, with car- 
tridges handy. The skipper overhauled his own 
pet weapon — a scatter-gun made from a twelve- 
gauge, double-barreled shotgun, sawed off and 


The Admiral and Trouble 


127 


loaded with slugs. He also produced an au- 
tomatic pistol in a holster attached to a car- 
tridge belt, which he handed over to Jim. 

''IVe got a long Colt Fm used to,’’ he said. 
^‘Now you’d better see how well you can shoot 
with that and practise a while with a rifle. 
WeVe got cartridges enough. Chuck a few 
bottles over and a packing case or two. Re- 
member to squeeze your trigger up to the 
last half ounce of resist, never jerk or pull 
it.” 

Jim obeyed gladly enough, though there was 
a certain grimness about this targetry that 
steadied him down. After a while the skip- 
per came to the stern rail and watched him. 

‘^You’ve got the makin’s of a good shot, 
Jim,” he said. ''Good hands and eyes. Dis- 
tance’ll come to you after a while. Did you 
note that our blackbirds ain’t singin’ any more ? 
They know what we’re up to. Now, I want 
to show you how to handle this stuff. You 
got to keep cool and not take too many chances, 
because they’s a lot of one-armed men in this 


128 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

part of the world who waited just one split of 
a second too long/’ 

The '"stuff” turned out to be greasy-looking, 
brown sticks, about the size of candles. They 
were half-sticks of dynamite. To their ends 
caps had been crimped and short lengths of 
orange-colored quick-fuse attached. 

"T gen’ally use a cheroot to light the fuse,” 
said the skipper, "but you don’t smoke and a 
bit of tow’s as good, if you blow on it once in 
a while to keep it glowing.” 

He produced the frayed end of a rope that 
he had dipped in saltpeter and dried in the sun, 
and ignited it, breathing on it till the oakum 
was well aglow. At his word Jim tossed over 
a small empty box from the trade-room, that 
bobbed gaily away. The skipper lit a fuse, 
inspected it, waved the dynamite in the air a 
few times and then hurled it at the box, now 
falling astern. Just as the explosive touched 
the sea, a foot or so short of the mark, it went 
off with a flash and a roar. The sea geysered, 
a whiff of gases came to them and Jim looked 


The Admiral and Trouble 129 

for the remnants of the box. There were none 
— but the white belly of an eight-foot shark 
showed in the wake. 

^That settled the chief mourner/’ said the 
skipper. 'Tf they’d been a school of mullet 
any where’s near, you’d have seen Friday hash. 
Once the fuse is lit — the length I’ve fixed ’em — 
count five, sort of slow, like this, and let her 
go. 

Out of the cabin came the indignant cry of 
the Admiral. 

''Look out, look out, you son of a swab, you'll 
sink the blooming ship!" 

"li that bird could write,” said the skipper, 
‘T’d make him keep the log.” 

There was no more wailing that day nor the 
night that followed. A little before noon on 
the next day the skipper pointed out a hump of 
blue on the western horizon, merely a stain of 
deeper hue against the sky. 

^^No need for observations this nooning.” 
he said. ‘We know where we are. There’s 
Tanavau.” 


CHAPTER X 


JIM LANDS THE BLACKBIRDS 

Tanavau turned out to be a volcanic islet 
with a thimble-shaped crest and deeply indented 
sides, a crescent bay bitten on the leeward side 
with one horn elongated to a low and narrow 
peninsula that ended in a point where palms 
grew sparsely. The sides of the mountain 
were rich with vegetation. From the rocky 
point, like a bow string stretching across the 
cord of the crescent bay, flashed a line of 
pounding breakers, smashing on the reef. 

The blackbirds had gathered in the eyes of 
the schooner, their dead comrade swathed in 
dirty cloths and strips of matting, with a grimy 
red bandana bound about the head to close the 
jaws. They chattered among themselves in a 
low tone, every little while casting glances at 
the members of the Manuwais crew that 
seemed, to Jim, vindictive. 

130 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 


131 

Jim had been casting over ways and means 
for landing their charges without friction and 
thought he might have solved the problem. He 
submitted his conclusion to Captain Burr. 

^^If we stood well out, Captain,’’ he sug- 
gested, ‘^and sent two boats, one to protect the 
other in case of trouble, couldn’t we land them 
on the point and get off again before those on 
shore knew what had happened?” 

‘'Send in a covering boat, you mean? It 
ain’t a bad idea, son, but it ain’t my way of 
doin’ things. In the first place we are ex- 
pected, that is, our blackbirds are expected, in 
some vessel or another. They’ve got us 
sighted long ago, and in a few minutes you’ll 
see their canoes cornin’ off to meet us. Then 
the beans will be spilled. Now they’s only ten 
of us, all told, on the Manuwai. Call it four 
men to each boat. If we launched they could 
paddle rings round us in their canoes and shoot 
us fuller of arrows than a hedgepig has quills. 
But the main consideration is not ever to let 
them think you’re afraid of ’em in any way. 


132 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

shape or form. Not lookin’ afraid is next best 
thing to not bein’ afraid. I’ve been afraid 
heaps of times — not of a bunch of savages in 
themselves, but of what that bunch might do 
to me. I don’t like bein’ carved or cooked any 
more than the next man. But I never showed 
’em I figgered they might get the better of me, 
and I’ve learned not to worry. It don’t pay. 
Half the time they’s nothin’ to worry about 
an’ if they was, worryin’ don’t help one derned 
bit. 

''Now, then, we ain’t got only ourselves to 
think of. Out in these latitudes we white men 
have got to stick together. If one weakens, it 
makes it worse for the next who comes along — 
and t’other way round. No, sir, we’ll sail 
right into the lagoon an’ land ’em shipshape. 
They ain’t got firearms, an’, so long as we keep 
’em clear of the deck, we’re safe. I ain’t de- 
nyin’ the risk, but . . . ?” 

"I see,” said Jim. "They may get the best 
of us, but it’s just like you told me before — 'a 
white man quits trying.’ ” 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 133 

‘^That’s the idee, an’ we want to hammer it 
home to these heathen, every chance we get. 
See, there come the canoes. The beans will 
be spilled as soon as we get within hailing dis- 
tance.” 

The skipper’s figurative beans were spilled 
sooner than that. When the nearest canoe 
was half a mile away, one of the Tanavau 
islanders dived cleanly from the bows of the 
Manuwai and swam at a tremendous pace, arm 
over arm, towards it. The schooner, under 
the lee of the mountain, was making only slow 
progress in a slackening and fitful breeze, but 
they could see the excitement aboard the canoe 
swiftly transmitted to the rest. Still there was 
no show of hostility. 

‘They want to get us close to shore as pos- 
sible, and they want to make sure of gettin’ 
their dead body,” explained the skipper. 
“They are tricky and treacherous, but they 
ain’t over and above clever, an’ they figger 
that they may catch us unprepared.” He 
called to Billi-Boy. 


134 Morse, South Sea Trader 

''I don’t like the look of that reef -gate,” he 
said. ^^You streak it for the foretop, Billi, 
and con us in.” 

The canoes closed in about the schooner, 
keeping an even distance that enabled the Tan- 
avau natives to maintain a steady jabber of 
talk with their fellows in the bows. Jim no- 
ticed few weapons in the canoes and figured 
that fact another reason for their present ap- 
parent friendliness. The skipper was at the 
wheel and Billi-Boy began to shout down di- 
rections. The Manuwai came up a little and 
headed for the entrance. The tide was at 
flood, and the current helped give them the 
steerageway the wind denied. The passage 
was shaped like an N, set on its side and 
slightly slanted, necessitating two sharp tacks 
and rapid handling of the sails. It led between 
spouting bursts of foam, with here and there 
creaming coral ledges as a great wave passed 
and the next curved. 

‘^No use tackling this gate after dark, or 
’cept when the tide is right,” said Captain Burr, 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 135 

between his roared-out orders, while he deftly 
played the wheel. 

''Jim, handle the headsails, will you? Til 
give the word for the hook. Til shoot her up, 
soon's we clear. Fourteen-fathom, the 'Pa- 
cific Directory’ gives it, good sand and coral.” 

Jim went forward, as Billi-Boy slid down 
the halyards from his perch, his duty done as 
lookout. Down came the canvas and out rat- 
tled the cable chain. The Manuwai swung to 
her buried flukes, bows, to the still incoming 
tribe. Captain Burr yelled at the clustering 
canoes to, keep their distance. One after an- 
other the blackbirds leaped over until only four 
were left with the dead body. "These set up 
once more the chant ^^yhich wias promptly echoed 
from the beach where scores of figures rushed 
from the bush to greet the newcomers. 

"May as well get it over and done with,” 
said the skipper to Jim. "That plaguey fever’s 
cornin’ on me ag’in an’ we want to shoot out 
through the reef on the turn of the tide. This 
is no place for a picnic. I’ll tell ’em we won’t 


136 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

send in a boat until they all go ashore. They 
won’t take off the corpse themselves, they fig- 
ger it as so much bait to fetch us on the beach. 
We’ll fool ’em.” 

He was already beginning to shake with the 
island fever, and Jim knew that before many 
minutes he would be helpless in its grip. Cap- 
tain Burr shook out some quinine crystals into 
his palm and swallowed them with a grim 
smile. 

‘That’s what a man gets for livin’ out of his 
own latitudes too long, Jim. White man, yel- 
low, or brown, we’ve got to stick to our own 
latitudes, or pay the penalty, sooner or later.” 
He went to the rail and bellowed his ultimatum 
through a megaphone. The canoes hovered, 
gathered together for a brief consultation, and 
finally obeyed him. The skipper wiped the 
sweat from his forehead in evident relief. 

“Now you four get into the boat with your 
dead man,” he ordered. “Billi-Boy, you take 
your regular crew. With Winchesters. Don’t 
fire unless you are in bad danger. We’ll cover 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 137 

you from the ship. Row like blazes over to 
the point, but do it right. Don't let 'em think 
you're hurried, goin' or cornin'. Jest put your 
beef into the strokes." 

The point was much nearer to the schooner 
than the beach where the natives were now 
flocked, close to the huts of their village, in 
and out of which men were hurrying, like ants 
in disturbance. The boat was lowered on the 
port side, the action covered by the ship's hull 
until the rowers cleared the Manuwai. 

Almost instantly the assemblage on the beach 
broke up. Most of them crowded into the 
canoes, while the rest started to run around 
the horn of the bay. And now Jim saw un- 
mistakably the glint of the sun on spear- 
heads and arrow points. The islanders had 
been -temporarily outwitted and they were only 
too keen to find opportunity for active resent- 
ment. 

''They'll try to cut oif the boat, Jim," said 
the skipper, gray beneath his tan, leaning 
against the skylight in weakness, while his 


138 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

whole body shook like an aspen leaf in the wind. 
''Don’t fire until the last minute, but dor^’t let 
the canoes get between us and the whaleboat, 
or Billi-Boy and the rest are gone coons.” It 
was hard to understand him for his chattering 
teeth, and, had it not been for former experi- 
ence, Jim could not have conceived a strong 
man so utterly stricken and yet capable 6f re- 
vival after the quinine got to work on his tis- 
sues. With a groan Captain Burr tried to 
pull himself together and then utterly col- 
lapsed, mind and body fettered by the alter- 
nate fits of high fever and low chills. Jim told 
two of the remaining sailors to get him to his 
bunk and return immediately on deck. 

He was now in command, and the time was 
critical. The boat had landed its live passen- 
gers. Evidently they intended delaying the 
boat as much as possible, for Jim saw Billi- 
Boy jump ashore and thrust the muzzle of his 
rifle into their ribs, keeping them back, while 
two of the Manuwai's sailors put the body on 
the sands. 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 


139 

By now the canoes were coming up at a tre- 
mendous pace, spray spurting from the paddle 
strokes. A little behind the rest came a war 
canoe, a species of catamaran, two canoes 
joined together by a framework on which was 
erected a high platform with a deck-house 
thatched and walled with grass. There were 
outriggers on both sides, and the craft, under 
the impulse of two-score rowers, glided with 
great velocity, overtaking the earlier launched 
and smaller craft. On the platform, warriors 
brandished their spears and the sound of their 
shouting carried clearly over the water. 

The fight was on. Tanavau had received 
its dead and was bent upon reprisal. A head 
for a life — two if they get them — heads of 
white men. Billi-Boy and his crew would 
count only for the larder, not as trophies. Jim 
found himself cool, and the skipper’s words 
kept repeating themselves as a sort of text. 

Don’t worry, half the time they’s nothin’ to 
worry about and it wouldn’t do any good if they 
was. 


140 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

But there were things to consider, if not to 
worry over. The high deck of the double 
canoe, Jim figured, would come almost flush 
with the top of the barbed-wire fence along the 
rail. The warriors could easily jump down 
over and across the wire. That was one thing. 
The second was the strategy of the attack. 
All in all there were ten canoes, outside the 
catamaran. The savage fleet had divided, 
four to attack the Manuzvai on the port, four 
on the starboard side, and two to intercept the 
boat, now coming back at top speed, with the 
ash oars bending and the water boiling about 
the blades. They would have to defend on all 
sides while the warriors from the war canoe 
would board at will. Unless they were 
stopped. 

The two sailors who had taken the skipper 
below had come on deck again and caught up 
their rifles. Jim went with them and the 
fourth man to the stern rail, casting an anxious 
look at the tide. It seemed to be swirling less 
strongly along the sides of the schooner. Once 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 14 1 

it changed to ebb, with enough strength to give 
him steerage way, he resolved to put out to 
sea. The wind had now dropped, but there 
were indications of a breeze from the land. 
Little catspaws ruffled the peacock-blue surface 
of the lagoon. 

The boat was a hundred yards from the 
schooner. Two canoes, coming at a tangent, 
had less than fifty yards to go before they cut 
them off and formed a screen that would make 
firing hazardous from the risk of hitting 
friends. 

Jim had never fired a shot in anger. He had 
seen one man killed. He recognized the neces- 
sity of stopping these canoes instantly. Billi- 
Boy and his men must get aboard in safety, 
and then all hands must hold off the savages 
until the tide turned and they got safely out 
to sea. That meant blood-spilling, probably 
death. But he did not think of the ethics. 
Captain Burr lay in his bunk, powerless for the 
time. The crew was under his charge. It 
was not only for himself he was going to fight. 


142 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

not only for the crew of the Manuzvai and its 
skipper, but for his race and to uphold the white 
man’s traditions. These things did not come 
as actual thoughts, part of them were tradition 
and instinct, the rest rose subconsciously. 

He grabbed a megaphone and yelled at Billi- 
Boy. 

^^Don’t stop to shoot! We’ll take care of 
them!” 

The boat came on, sidling away a little from 
the canoes. Jim clipped down two up-raised 
sights on the kanakas' rifles. They had an un- 
alterable idea that the raising of the sights had 
something to do with the firing of the pieces. 

'Tire low,” he told them, leveled his own 
rifle that wavered a bit, then steadied, and 
gently, steadily, squeezed the trigger. He 
had covered the shoulder of the bow paddler 
of the leading canoe in the hind notch of his 
sight. A paddle blade broke, shattered. The 
canoe swerved as the bowman slumped for- 
ward and his paddle went adrift. The whale- 
boat shot by and swept up to the side of the 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 143 

schooner with arrows in its planks and one 
sticking through Billi-^Boy’s loin-cloth. 

''Never touch me, I jolly you,’' shouted Billi, 
as he slid through a gap in the barbed wire, 
followed by the crew, and jumped for his rifle. 
One man fastened the boat-painter to a cleat 
and closed the wire as the baffled canoes 
sheered off, sending a cloud of arrows at the 
schooner. They flew high, thupping through 
the canvas of the furled headsails and sticking 
in the masts. 

'Tide, he slack,” said Billi-Boy. "Plenty 
soon he turn. Wind too he come along mauka 
(mountain). 

Jim saw wisps of cloud streaming through 
the gaps in the mountain-top. The catspaws 
had spread to a steady riffle that covered the 
lagoon. Already the schooner was swinging, 
the anchor-chain slackened, as the ship caught 
the between-tide eddies. 

The war-canoe had been halted by strenu- 
ous back-strokes of its paddles. The others 
gathered about it. The yelling died down for 


144 Morse, South Sea Trader 

a moment. Then it was redoubled. The 
flotilla divided and swept down upon the 
schooner. But puff after puff of wind now 
struck the Manuwai. 

Jim determined to risk the reef -gate. 

''Get up the" headsails, Billi-Boy!’’ he or- 
dered. "Then the main! Stand by to knock 
the pin out of the shacklebolt T’ They would 
have to sacrifice the anchor. There was no 
time to haul it in. Jim figured that they could 
take care of the men who tried to swarm over 
the barbed wire. The war canoe was the main 
danger. It was gliding along on the port quar- 
ter, as the crew under Billi jumped to their 
orders and the sails came up and filled to the 
breeze. The schooner chafed at her cable un- 
til the pin was sledged out, then she began to 
gather way and slip through the water, faster 
and faster. 

"Take the wheel, Billi,’' shouted Jim. 'T’ll 
con you out." 

It seemed to him that the mast was the hon- 
orable post. Whoever took it would be a fair 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 145 

mark for arrows. Billi started to expostulate 
but Jim clipped him off with a brief ''PauL 
And, as he issued his orders, he worked quickly. 
With a match he lit the tow-end the skipper 
had used for demonstrating the dynamite, from 
the soap-box he caught up half a dozen of the 
capped and fused half-sticks and shoved them 
in the bosom of his undershirt. He gripped 
the glowing tow in his teeth and jumped for 
the mainmast, sticking his naked, curling toes 
in the wooden rings and using the halyards, 
climbing like a streak while arrows whizzed 
by him. One passed fairly between him and 
the mast as he curved his body outwards in 
the clamber. He reached the throat of the 
gaff and bestrode it saddlewise. The topsails 
were still furled. 

The schooner was heeling to the wind and 
racing fast towards the first angle of the gate. 
Jim shouted a direction down to Billi at the 
wheel, then blew his tow into redness and ap- 
plied it to a sputtering fuse. 

He whirled it about his head, deciding to cut 


146 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

short the skipper’s count to three, allowing for 
the distance. Arrows sidled by him, but the 
wind confused the shooters and he was still 
unscathed. 

The sailors were shooting at the canoes 
which seemed waiting to make their final swoop 
until the catamaran was alongside. The 
mainsail was sheeted out to starboard, and 
Jim’s aim was clear of the gaff. He flung the 
dynamite as he would have hurled a fireworks’ 
squib, clearing the stays. 

It lit fairly between the two hulls, under the 
platform and exploded. The Manuwai shud- 
dered, and Billi sharply swung the wheel to 
keep the sails full. Jim saw upflung planks 
above a burst of orange flare, black figures 
flung headlong, shattered remnants of the war 
canoe tossing on troubled waters, and then bob- 
bing heads that made for the nearest aid. 

''Keep her up a bit,” he shouted to Billi, for 
they were entering the channel at a lively gait. 
Then — "Stand by, below! Hard-a-lee! In- 
haul I” And they were reaching down the sec- 


Jim Lands the Blackbirds 147 

ond leg. Another shift of wheel and sheets 
and the Manuzvai shot out to the open sea. 

Jim took one last glimpse at the lagoon. 
There was no more thought of pursuit. The 
canoes were retrieving the warriors from the 
catamaran, who had escaped the explosion. 
The breeze strengthened, and Jim slid down to 
the deck. 

‘^Stand out for a mile or so, Billi-Boy,’’ he 
ordered. ‘^Then make it nor’-east-by-nor' 
and hold it so !” 

'^Aye, aye, sir,’' sung out Billi with a cheer- 
ful grin. ^'What I tell you plenty trouble he 
walk along? I think plenty trouble back along 
there in Tanavau, I jolly you yes. Hi-yah, 
those black fella they jump all same flying-fish, 
when you throw um that devil-stick !” 

‘'Any one hurt, Billi?” 

“No. That Kaili, he speak one arrow he 
split um ear. Do him good. Too much blood 
that Kaili got. Get mad too plenty quick. 
Maybe better now.” 

Jim went below. Captain Burr tossed and 


148 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

writhed in his bunk, but managed to open his 
eyes. 

^^At sea with a good breeze, sir,’’ Jim re- 
ported. ^^No one hurt — except some of the 
blackbirds. I fed them dynamite.’^ 

The skipper was past talking for the time 
being, but he lay back quietly. Jim started to 
tip-toe on deck again, when the Admiral 
squawked suddenly, 

''Never say die, my hoy! Never say die N 

Jim stopped, scratched the bird's head and 
gave him a fragment of biscuit. 

'T'll say that's a good motto. Admiral," he 
replied. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE GRAVEN IMAGE 

said the skipper, as he scratched his 
beard and cocked his single eye towards his at- 
tentive listener, ‘'there is a Science Shark up 
at the Plumaria Hotel, and I think we can do 
business with him. Trade’s slack, and, unless 
you’re specially anxious to get back to Lele 
Motu and your Uncle Dan’l, we might take up 
his proposition.” 

“What is a Science Shark, Captain Burr?” 
parried Jim. 

“Wal, gen’ally speakin’, Jim, I should de- 
scribe ’em, such as I have known of the species, 
as bug-catchers and bone-snatchers. Give 
’em the shin of a kanaka king out of some old 
cave, and they can tell you the name of his 
tribe, the number of wives he had, what his 
name was, the language he talked and where 

149 


150 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

his people came from in the beginning. Same 
way with bugs. Show ’em a dead beetle or 
the empty shell of a land snail, and they’ll write 
a book about it or talk your arm off, if you let 
’em. If it wasn’t for them, the museums ’ud 
go out of business and nobody ’ud ever know 
what a ring-tailed rithydinkus looked like be- 
for the flood. 

'^They’re mostly bald and short-sighted, are 
these Science Sharks, and on board ship they’re 
a blamed, botherin’ nuisance. I had one on 
the Manuwai one time, an’ I wouldn’t repeat 
the dose for three times the money, which was 
ample. The schooner was filled up with things 
in bottles and things pinned on cork and things 
being skinned and cut up till I didn’t know was 
I runnin’ a ship, a morgue, or a drugstore. 
But this one is different. We won’t take him 
along. I had a talk with him last night, an’, 
though I didn’t tell him I had what he wanted, 
I learned what he did want and I found out he 
was willin’ to pay for it — liberal.” 

'‘What was it?” asked Jim. 


The Graven Image 15 1 

''An idol. A graven image. They's lots 
of ’em kickin’ about, but not the kind he wants. 
He — wait — they’s a bit in the paper about him. 
You can read it, it’s full of jaw-twisters.” 

He handed over the clipping from the Tahiti 
newspaper and Jim read it with interest. 

Professor Elkhart Grimes, eminent philolo- 
gist, has arrived in the Low Archipelago after 
a lengthy sojourn in Micronesia and Melanesia, 
where he has been endeavoring tp secure links 
in the theory advanced by Deniker, Keane and 
Fornander that the Polynesian migration can 
be traced back to pre-Sanskritic times and as- 
signed to the first or second centuries ; that the 
Polynesians are a separate ethnic group, a 
branch of the Caucasic division of mankind, 
migrating from the Asiatic mainland in the 
Neolithic period. 

Professor Grimes seeks especially to tie up 
this theory by a collection of images that, with 
their characteristic carvings, attitudes, place- 
ments and inscriptions, will make a chain from 
India across Malaysia, Melanesia, Micronesia 
and Polynesia to the monuments of Peru. In 
general, these images, or idols for, though 
Professor Grimes believes them originally to 
have been the statues of ancient leaders, indu- 
bitably many of them have been used for wor- 


152 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

ship in latter years; are of the type found on 
Easter Island, those mysterious and mammoth 
figures that have no traditional history, but 
which Mr. Grimes hopes to identify by the es- 
tablishment of his interesting theory. 

The expedition has been financed by the Pan- 
American Philological Society, and vast sums 
have been expended so far. Professor Grimes 
expects to remain in the Society Group for some 
time, making Tahiti his headquarters, before 
he goes eastward to South America on the last 
lap of his journeyings. He is at the Hotel 
Plumaria. Yesterday he was in touch by ca- 
ble with the curator of the Bishop Museum in 
Honolulu. . . . 

'T didn't read all of it, Jim,” said the skip- 
per. enough to get interested. Can you 

understand it?” 

^T think so. He means that the Polynesians 
are different from all other South-Sea Island- 
ers and of a very ancient race that came from 
India or even Egypt.” 

^^He's right, I reckon. The Hawaiians, 
Samoans, Tongans and Puamotu kanakas are 
different. Like the Maoris. Every one 
knows that. I could have said it without all 


153 


The Graven Image 

them jaw-twisters. Wal, the phnt is, he’s hop- 
in’ to find an idol somewhere ’round the Soci- 
eties, or the Marquesans, that looks like the 
images on Rapanui — that’s Easter Island. He 
don’t expect to find anything in the Paumotus, 
because they’re all coral and it takes volcanic 
stone to cut the idols out of. Now, they don’t 
say so in the paper, because they’re glad to have 
the Professor stick around and spend his 
money, but the folks that thinks they know the 
groups best are laughin’ at him, because they 
think they’s no such stone gods this side of the 
Fijis. Little ones mebbe, small tikiikis and 
wooden ones, but not what he’s after. 

“I’ve been to Rapanui and I’ve seen them 
images of gray lava, all the way from four 
feet high to forty, all of ’em chucked off their 
pedestals on the big terraces where they used 
to stare out to sea. A British expedition took 
one of ’em once for the British Museum. 
Eight feet high it was and weighed four tons. 
They’s stone houses there, too, a hundred foot 
long with painted pictures of birds an’ beasts 


154 Morse, South Sea Trader 

an’ figgers of squares an’ circles an’ triangles. 
Rocks along of the houses carved into faces, 
human an’ animal an’ devil. A rum place, Ra- 
panui, Jim. 

‘'But the funny thing about all the images 
is that the tops of the heads is all chiseled flat 
an’ they used to have crowns fittin’ the flat 
places, an’ these crowns was of red stone, taken 
from a crater miles away from the quarry 
where they cut the gray stone for the images. 
I saw some of the crowns at the crater, all cut 
and ready for shipment to the terraces. One 
of them crowns, Jim, was ten foot across. 

“Easter Island, as the paper calls it, Ra- 
panui the natives call it, is twenty-four hun- 
dred miles east of Tahiti. Now the Professor 
has found the same sort of images in the 
Tongas and they’re fifteen hundred west of 
here. He wants to close the gap. Figgers of 
the natives are the same race all the way, they 
must be that kind of an idol somewheres in the 
gap. He’s right, Jim. There is. And I’m 
the only one knows where it is. This Grimes 


155 


The Graven Image 

is ready to put up a thousand dollars clear 
above all expenses to any one who’ll deliver 
him a fair-sized image along his specifications, 
free-on- wharf at- Tahiti. He might raise the 
ante a bit, at that. A thousand in the clear 
ain’t to be sneezed at before we close up for the 
season. What d’ye say?” 

'Tt looks good to me,” said Jim. ‘'Let’s 


CHAPTER XII 


THE ISLAND OF HUAREVA 

On the morning of the day that they ex- 
pected to fetch Huareva, according to the 
reckoning of the skipper, and of Jim, who was 
rapidly learning how to shoot the sun and work 
out his observations, the latter was on deck be- 
fore dawn. He found the schooner sailing 
through a silver sea, reaching easily on a light 
breeze at six knots. He went forward into 
the bows and waited for the first sight of land- 
fall. This lifting of land out of the sea at the 
time and in the place where chronometers, sun 
angles and the figures of the ‘'Nautical Al- 
manac’’ determined was a never-ending de- 
light to Jim. It seemed almost as if the land 
came up by magic after the saying of incanta- 
tions. 

The idea of magic was stronger than ever 
156 


The Island of Huareva 157 

this morning, as the first flush stole into the 
east and the silver sea reflected the rose and 
orange cloudlets like a crystal mirror. The 
sky deepened from pale lilac to turquoise, then 
to deeper sapphire, while the feathery cloudlets 
flamed and faded and a thimble-shaped mound 
of amethyst showed on the northern horizon. 

Jim called the skipper, and they breakfasted 
on tea and golden-hearted papaia or tree- 
melon, on soft bread and freshly caught flying- 
fish, while the breeze strengthened and the 
Manuwai heeled to it, sliding faster and faster 
through the crisp water, as if eager to reach 
her destination. 

''Huareva is a little kingdom of its own,’’ 
said the skipper. "The king’s name is Teti- 
opilo an’ he weighs a pound for every day of 
the year, though he’s a giant for skeleton and 
gets away with it. By rights, Huareva should 
belong to the Marquesans, but Tetiopilo’s 
father led a pirating expedition on war canoes 
from Huareva among the Marquesans and car- 
ried off prit’ nigh all the young an’ pritty girls 


158 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader, 

for wives. Since then, the Huarevans ain't 
been popular with the Marquesans. Tetiopilo 
himself is nigh to sixty years old, and no one 
has ever dared to look cross-eyed at him, so 
that he’s pritty used to havin’ his own way. 
For a long time he didn’t have any use for the 
white men, an’ landin’ on Huareva was almost 
as bad as landin’ on Malaita in the Solomons — 
you could land all right but the job was to leave. 
Then the missioners’ schooner, Morning 
Star, landed a missioner named David Thrum, 
and Thrum made a hit with Tetiopilo because 
he wasn’t afraid of him and showed it. 

“He pointed' out to Tetiopilo his sinfulness 
and in six weeks he converted him from his 
evil ways, which included his extra wives, his 
drinking and his habit of eating his enemies 
or any stranger that happened his way. Con- 
verted all the island, too, though they say Teti- 
opilo took a hand in that end of it with a war- 
club, when Thrum wasn’t lookin’. Anyway, 
when the Morning Star comes back for David 
Thrum, they find a church built down on the 


The Island of Hnareva 159 

beach and all the Huarevans singing himinis 
and dressed respectable. The idol's nose was 
out of joint and they let the jungle grow up and 
hide it. Old Tetiopilo took me to see it once 
up in the cliff temple jest to show me what a 
good Christian he was. Two hours after that 
I found out he'd watered his copra, to make it 
weigh heavier, but I suppose he has to back- 
slide once in a while. It's a hard job to change 
a sixty-year old cannibal into a meek and mild 
deacon. Anyway, that's how I came to see the 
idol and that's how I know they'll let it go 
cheap. A few dozen cans of salmon, twenty 
yards of cloth and some tobacco will fix that." 

The skipper rose, fed the rest of the papaia 
to the Admiral and went on deck with Jim. 
They were close up to the island now. It 
looked not unlike a gigantic fern basket, clothed 
as it was with verdure from beach to tip-top 
summit, where a misty cloud hid the only bare 
crag. In the morning light the varying greens 
were wonderfully vivid, the shadows of the 
valleys purple and the whole of Huareva 


i6o Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

seemed as if fresh-dipped in water, an isle of 
enchantment. Flocks of birds, bright as blos- 
soms, rose and wheeled above the trees, the 
reef-surf purred and the flood-tide lipped the 
beach gently as the Manuwai made up to its 
moorings by the copra wharf and the anchor 
buried itself in the bottom sands of the still 
lagoon. 

After the bustle of furling sail was over, 
Jim noticed the skipper peering perplexedly at 
the land, his one eye puckered. Jim looked 
too, and saw that the beach was deserted and 
that, save for the murmur of the surf and the 
chatter of the birds, the place was strangely 
silent. 

Back of the wharf stood the copra sheds, 
and, a little way down the curving beach, he 
could see the grass roofs of the village and the 
corrugated iron roof of what should be the 
church, to judge from the conical steeple of 
thatch. 

^Tt looks as if they^d all left,’’ he said. The 
skipper nodded. 


The Island of Huareva i6i 

Tain’t like the king not to be on hand,” he 
declared. '' ’Course, it ain’t tradin’ season, an’ 
he wouldn’t be expectin’ anybody. They may 
be all on the other side of the island on a grand 
fishin’ trip. Give ’em the salutin’ gun, Jim, 
an’ see if we can’t rouse some one up.” 

Jim slipped a blank cartridge into the breech 
of the little brass cannon and pulled the lan- 
yard. There was a puff of white smoke, a 
flash and a report that roared back at them 
from the slope of the land, sending the birds 
flying high in indignation. Jim gave Huareva 
three cartridges, but failed to gain any recog- 
nition. 

'Tt’s rum,” said the skipper. ''See there, 
son, there’s his copra lying beside the ware- 
house. It ain’t even sacked yet. Something 
wrong here. Sickness, mebbe. I’ll get my 
medicine chest an’ we’ll go ashore.” 

But there was not a sign of any inhabitant’s 
presence. They went through the huts of the 
village and found them in order, with the mats 
in place, cooking utensils cleaned and put aside. 


1 62 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

In the church the hymn books lay on the 
benches and the pulpit of hand-polished and 
carved toa wood was draped with a red cloth. 
It was a model village — without any villagers. 
A great pile of empty salmon cans were dumped 
in one place, nowhere was there any litter. 
But — there were no people. 

'They can’t all have gone off on a trip,” 
argued the skipper. "Not all the women and 
kids, unless there was some sort of a plague. 
I’ve seen that happen an’ an island left cleaned 
out of population and kapu. It’s derned funny. 
The village looks as if they might have cleared 
out in a hurry, for they haven’t taken a thing 
with ’em, but it ain’t been very long ago by the 
looks of things. They was a bunch of bananas 
hangin’ up in one of the huts an’ the fruit 
ain’t more than fairly ripe. You an’ me’ll 
go on a little exploration trip, Jim. They’s 
good trails all over the' island. If nobody’s 
at home, we’ll take along the idol an’ leave 
pay for it. We’ll have to lower it down from 
the cliff on the other side of the island. Water 


The Island of Huareva 163 

comes up deep close to the land and the 
weather’s just right for the job. We’ll leave 
Billi-Boy aboard with four men and take the 
rest with ropes an’ tackle. Billi can sail 
around while we’re goin’ overland. We’ll rig 
up a spar and put the thing through. A con- 
verted king’s got no use for an idol and a 
Christianized island is no place for a graven 
image.” 

It was a strange journey, Jim thought, up 
through the thick guava brush and then 
through the dense forests where high boughs 
met overhead and made all the way a green 
twilight, where ferns and creepers choked the 
growths and interlaced the trees, and great 
orchids swung like lighted lamps, while butter- 
flies, gaudy as the flowers, flitted noiselessly 
ahead of them as they steadily mounted. Here 
and there shafts of sun struck through the 
heavy verdure, spattering the ground and 
gilding foliage and blossoms. Silence reigned. 
It was an island of silence. The birds had 
either fled at their approach or hovered too 


164 Jifyi Morse, South Sea Trader 

high above the treetops for their voices to be 
heard. 

Once Kaili, one of the native crew, stopped, 
with a warning palm set against their progress, 
and, his broad nostrils flattened, snuffed 
eagerly. To Jim the forest was areek with the 
perfume of shrubs and flowers and the aroma 
of spicy growths, but the kanaka evidently 
sensed something else. For two or three min- 
utes he stood with his head thrown back, frozen 
to a statue, while the rest of the party kept 
quiet and tried to hold their breaths. 

''Man he walk along bush,’' said Kaili at 
last. "Two, five, ten, plenty man he walk 
along, I think thisaway.” 

He pointed and they stood still, looking down 
a tangled aisle of the forest. But there was 
no sound, and presently Kaili owned that he 
could no longer detect the smell. Jim noticed 
that the skipper did not pay very much atten- 
tion. 

"Can he really smell men in the bush?” he 
asked. 


The Island of Huareva 165 

‘^Some of ’em claim to,” said the skipper, 
^'but I never saw them come through with it. 
I suppose all of us humans could smell once on 
a time, an’ it stands to reason a kanaka should 
smell better than a white man. But I don’t 
put over much stock in it. Kaili is like the rest 
of ’em. They’re all too anxious to get in the 
limelight. Let’s push on.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


AT THE TEMPLE 

The primeval, tropical growth closed in, 
thinned out and closed again, but now the sea 
wind began to manifest itself and Jim smelled 
the tang of the salt ocean with relief. The 
heavy odors of the jungle were sickly after 
awhile. The narrow path hacked out of the 
jungle, that they had been following, turned 
sharply and mounted a rise where they caught 
a glimpse of the ocean looking like grosgrain 
silk beneath them and the Manuwai tacking 
shorewards. The pitch was steep, but the 
trail was deeply worn and wide enough for two 
to walk abreast. Kaili got restless again, but 
the skipper led the way with Jim beside him. 
Both carried their automatics in holsters, but 
there seemed no cause to use them. 


i66 


At the Temple 167 

‘The heiau (temple) is just ahead/' said 
Captain Burr. 

A nauseating whilf assailed Jim's nostrils. 
It was not unlike a concentration of the jungle- 
flowers, and it somehow suggested a charnel 
house where flesh and funeral blossoms alike 
have decayed. Five or six scarlet butter- 
flies danced on a beam of light and lit upon a 
branch that was leafless, where they clung with 
wavering wings. The path led to a head-high 
fence of weathered wooden pickets, with here 
and there a tall post that had its top carved 
into a ghastly, hideous travesty of a face, with 
lolling tongue and shallow-gleaming eyes of 
pearl-shell. Either side of an entrance gate- 
way towered two wooden images and all about 
the enclosure were others leering at the in- 
truders, squat bodies carved out of wooden 
stakes whose pointed ends were driven in the 
hard packed earth. Some of them slanted 
drunkenly. The jungle had grown, since the 
god had been discarded, and gloomy cypresses 
bound with lianas crowded close to the fence. 


i68 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

leaving only one gap seaward, through which 
the light came and touched a gray and silent 
figure, majestic with a strange dignity, rudely 
suggested though the limbs and features were 
in the great block of gray lava. The face was 
sphinxlike, though the nose was long, the eyes 
slanting. The top of the head was flat, lack- 
ing a crown of red stone. The hands were 
on the knees, set close together. From the lap 
to the feet, where there was placed a troughlike 
stone, a dark suggestive stain showed where 
the blood of victims had trickled down from 
the bodies set on that awful lap. 

A shed with a high-peaked roof of grass had 
been built about the god on three sides. On 
either side of the idol skulls were piled high 
in broken pyramids. Orchids swung down 
from the thatch and these were as scarlet as 
the butterflies Jim had noticed outside, scarlet 
as clots of blood, he thought. Despite the heat 
of the day, the place seemed cold, sepulchral, 
horrible with the remembrance of all the vic- 
tims sacrificed to that grim image, testified to 


At the Temple 169 

by the piles of grinning skulls, the stains on 
the idol, and the sacrifical stone. 

As Jim gazed at the god the enclosure seemed 
to darken until the radiant hue of the orchids 
faded. He looked up and saw the sky still 
blue beyond the tangle of the meeting boughs. 
But, seaward, the horizon was banded for some 
twenty degrees with a slate-colored cloud 
that showed a ragged and livid edge, swiftly 
climbing toward the zenith, urged by the wind. 
He caught sight, too, of the Manuwai, jibs 
down, only the staysail set, foresail close 
furled, two reefs in the main, beating out to sea. 
Billi-Boy had forestalled the sudden squall 
and was prepared to meet it with searoom for 
manoeuvering. They would have to wait un- 
til the tropical storm was over before the 
schooner could work up again for the lowering 
of the stone god. 

And that was not going to be an easy job, 
Jim thought, as he looked at the bulk of the 
thing, frowning down upon them as if ready to 
resent desecration. But the skipper took the 


I/O Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

matter easily enough. He bade the native boys 
throw their ropes and blocks on the ground 
and walked round the temple enclosure to sur- 
vey his ground. 

''We’ll skid his nibs along on cypress logs,” 
he announced. "Have to take out a section of 
the fence. That big tree’ll do for a boom. 
We’ll put the lift-rope on to the schooner’s 
winch — it ain’t more’n a hundred foot down — 
an’ we’ll steady it from here with a guy. Now 
what in time is wrong with youf' 

It was Kaili again, his brown face gray with 
fright, his eyes wide open and his nostrils 
agape. 

"What I say — what I say along you?” he 
gasped. "Too plenty much kanaka walk along 
this place. Too much . . . ! ! Yah!” 

Like so many great apes, the Huarevans 
dropped from the bows of the cypresses, falling 
from above, vaulting over the fence, a hundred 
of them, filling the little enclosure as suddenly 
as water from a pump will fill a trough. The 
skipper and Jim were pinioned before they 


At the Temple 171 

could get their automatics from their holsters 
and the native boys thrown violently to the 
ground. All this was done in comparative 
silence, with the grunts and gasps of wrest- 
ling men. Then, through the gate, there came 
two of the strangest figures Jim had ever seen. 

First came Tetiopilo, king of Huareva, enor- 
mous, gross, the woolly hair above his three- 
chinned face stained orange by lime applica- 
tions and frizzed out like the mane of a lion. 
About his fat neck he wore a necklace of hu- 
man hair, from which pended a hooklike orna- 
ment made from whale ivory. The lower part 
of his distended stomach was tattooed, the 
decorations seemingly continued to his knees, 
partly hidden by a loin-cloth. Shell and fibre 
bracelets were pressing deep into the flesh of 
his forearms, brass rings tinkled on his puffy 
ankles. He carried a curved club of heavy 
wood, studded with shark’s teeth, swinging it 
lightly. For all his flesh he held dignity, but 
his features were heavy and cruel. His black 
eyes held malignancy as he walked through his 


172 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

people who pressed aside a way for him, and 
gazed gloatingly at the captives. 

Captain Burr returned his gaze steadily, and 
Jim attempted to follow the skipper’s example. 
Behind the gigantic chief stalked a tall, lean 
man, with the face of a hawk, his frame be- 
dizened with feathers, with bones, with teeth, 
with beards and tresses of human hair and with 
yard upon yard of brass wire wound around 
arms and legs, elbows to wrists and knees to 
ankles. Cockatoo plumes were in his fuzzy 
hair, one-half of his fierce face was daubed 
with yellow earth, the other with red. His 
body was smeared black and his ribs were 
picked out with white. He carried a gourd 
rattle in one hand, the other was clutched over 
the carved hilt of a machete, swung from a 
belt of shark-skin in a wooden sheath. As he 
came on, the crowd made room for him even 
more eagerly than for the king. 

kahuna (wizard), Jim,” said the skipper, 
in a whisper, as Tetiopoli turned away from 
them and the last comer stood before the idol 



Behind the gigantic chief stalked a tall, lean man, with the face of a hawk 
his frame bedizened with feathers, with bones, Avith teeth 






» 


K 


% 






I 


• t 














% 


\ 











r 


V 




/ 





X 


« 


/ 


I 


1 






* 


r 


* 


• i 



» 

I 






I 






» 

» 




/ 


% 





>1 . 



173 


At the Temple 

with his arms outspread, one hand shaking the 
rattle, the other holding the now naked blade. 
'Tm afraid the king’s backslid. We’ll soon 
find out.” 

There was no question about that, Jim de- 
cided, thinking of the Manuwai working her 
way seaward against the squall. The dark 
cloud was well above them now and the tree- 
grown place was so gloomy that the men 
farthest from them seemed shadows and the 
red orchids were no longer distinguishable. 

Tetiopilo came over to them again and stood 
laughing silently, his great body shaking like 
a jelly. 

''What for you come along Huareva, Kapi- 
tani Burri?” he asked. "Too bad I think you 
come because one time you all same my 
friend.” 

"Why not your friend now, Tetiopilo?” 

"No papalangi (white foreigner) friend of 
mine,” said the king, and his face blackened 
with anger. "All papalangi too much cheat. 
No good.” 


174 Morse, South Sea Trader 

''Davida Tarumi (Thrum) does not cheat, 
Tetiopilo,’’ said Burr quietly. 

The king made a violent gesture, evidently 
working himself into a rage. 

'T tell you papalangi no good ! Davida 
Tarumi he come and make plenty too much 
talk along papalangi god. He speak my god 
no good, his god much better. Much better 
I live the way he speak. Allaright. Me, I try 
thataway. I talk along my people — make 
them walk all same way Davida say. Not 
drink, not steal, not have more than one wife, 
not fight. Yah! All same Huareva men soon 
they all like women ! Bimeby comes one papa- 
langi trader. He speak he all same brother 
to Davida wife. I give him plenty shell, plenty 
pearl, plenty trepang, plenty turtle. Copra 
not dry or I give him copra. He give me 
samani (salmon). Allaright, we eat that 
samani. My word, I think we all die. I tell 
you too much plenty trouble walk around my 
belly, walk around bellies all my men. I think 
that man he try make us all mate. Bimeby he 


At the Temple 175 

think he come back, get all copra for nothing. 

''Kilo,'’ the king turned to the hawk-faced, 
painted priest, "he speak along my god. My 
god he say he too much angry along this Davida 
Tarumi and this papalangi trader. He mad 
along us. He speak better we die. My word, 
everybody mighty sick. Kilo talk plenty hard 
to my god. God he say suppose he smell the 
blood one — two — papalangi men he fix every- 
thing. I tell Kilo we do this a-thing. Eyah 
— everybody rightaway get well — no one mate! 
Allaright, your motu (ship) he come. We 
hide. Now we fix you so my god he know I 
speak straight along him. EyahT 

The islanders echoed his last cry and Kilo, 
the wizard, advanced with gleaming, upraised 
knife. Jim, standing by the skipper, braced 
himself. Out of the black sky came mutter- 
ings of thunder. He wondered where the 
Manuzvai was now, and whether Billi-Boy 
would know their fate? Whether it would be 
avenged ? Whether the brother-in-law of 
David Thrum had known the salmon was bad 


176 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

and would give Tetiopilo and his people pto- 
maine-poisoning ? 

''You are foolish, Tetiopilo,’' spoke the skip- 
per’s voice, steady and even. "You know the 
papalangi god is stronger than your god. Do 
not do this thing, or you will be sorry.” 

"Hai! What kind of talk is that? Your 
god stronger than my god! You think that 
so? Allaright. We try. Suppose your god 
so big, you speak along him, maybe he show 
how plenty strong he is. Hai I I give you one 
mele (chant) along time you try. Suppose 
you sing himinif Suppose you make talk 
along your god ?” 

He spoke to Kilo, the wizard, and the latter 
spoke to all the murderous crowd. Instantly 
all save the men holding Burr, Jim and the 
boys from the schooner squatted on their 
haunches and began to chant in a weird minor, 
very softly, a death chant, their eyes rolling to- 
wards the victims. 

"You heard what he said, Jim,” said the 
skipper. "Soon as that meWs over they’ll slit 


177 


At the Temple 

our throats and stick us up on the lap of that 
graven image. Fm shy on eddication, Jim, an’ 
I was never much of a hand to pray, but, son, 
we sure need a prayer now. Mebbe you could 
make shift to put up a talk — to Him.” He 
jerked his head upwards to the black heavens. 

ain’t no manner of right to ask Him for any 
favors, but you’re a clean youngster and it 
don’t seem as if He would let this thing go 
over, if He knew about it.” 

The darkness, the creaking of the cypress 
boughs in the rising wind, the dirge of the 
natives and the exultant eyes of Kilo worked 
on Jim’s spirit. He tried to formulate a 
prayer, but the words would not come. His 
throat was parched, his lips sticky. As he 
spurred his mind for a form of supplication, 
again and again the words of the command- 
ment came to him, while he gazed through the 
gloom at the idol in the shed, with the dark 
stain reaching from the knees to the altar stone. 

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 

Thou shalt not make unto thyself a graven 


178 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

image, nor any likeness of anything that is in 
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, 
or that is in the water under the earth: thou 
shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor 
serve them; for I, thy God, am a jealous 
God. . . . 

The chant ceased, the Huarevans sprang to 
their feet, the men grasping the captives tight- 
ened their grip and Kilo advanced, his blade 
upraised, the point upwards. It was the end! 

Out of the black sky above shot down a siz- 
zling, dazzling shaft of fire. Its lurid, lav- 
ender flame lit up the whole place, revealing 
the sinister face of the graven god. Then the 
bolt struck the lifted steel in Kilo's hand and 
fused it, jumping to the brass wire wound about 
his limbs, sending him to the ground before his 
shriek could leave his agonized lips. A crash 
of thunder followed hard — and there was the 
horrible smell of crisping flesh. 

Another flare and Jim saw the face of Teti- 
opilo, awed, pop-eyed, his mouth agape, as he 
flung himself upon the ground amid his terror- 
stricken people and the charred remnant of 


At the Temple 179 

Kilo, the wizard. Jim felt himself released, 
saw the skipper step forward and heard him 
shout — 

“The papalangi god has spoken, O Teti- 
opilo 

At twilight the Manuwai sped south-and- 
west before a spanking breeze. In the hold 
was the graven image — no longer a god, but 
representing a thousand dollars as a museum 
curio and a link in the history of the Polyne- 
sian race. Aft, Huareva showed like a purple 
cloud on the horizon. The schooner was too 
far away for sounds to carry, but Jim knew 
that in the little church on the beach a thor- 
oughly chastened monarch was conducting an 
impromptu but fervent service, consisting 
mostly of himinis from the collection left be- 
hind by David Thrum, South Sea missionary. 

The storm had long since died away, the 
night was to be a starlight one. Already the 
first points of fire were breaking through the 
dome of heaven, and Jim, looking upwards, 


i8o Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 


quoted softly to the skipper the line that came 
into his head, 

He moves in a mysterious way, His wonders 
to perform. 

‘"Son,’’ said the skipper, ‘"you said some- 
thing/’ 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE widow's mite 

The Manuwai sailed serenely, leisurely, 
across a sea of blue and silver, sapphire in the 
shadows, silver-gilt in the myriad high-lights, 
where the ripples caught the sun. High above 
her masts planed a mbelema — a frigate-bird — 
on outstretched pinions, soaring lazily with 
wings banked against the gentle wind. Every 
little while flying-fish shot up between wind and 
water in graceful arcs, mailed in the colors of 
their element, azure and argent, like heralds 
of the deep. 

It was mid-afternoon. Far, very far to the 
east, the plumed tops of the palms of one of the 
Matabai Islands showed, apparently stemless. 
It was lazy weather, and the schooner rolled 
a little as if dizzy with sleep. The kanaka 
'crew was slumbering in the deck shadows, 
without exception; the Admiral had his bril- 

i8i 


1 82 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

liant head tucked beneath an emerald wing. 

Jim Morse, at the wheel, was the only wide- 
awake person aboard, for Captain Burr, 
though he affected to talk and smoke as he 
lolled on the companion skylight, nodded now 
and then and emphasized every other nod with 
a prodigious yawn. His one eye was decidedly 
sleepy, Jim thought sympathetically, and 
hinted that the skipper might turn in, but Burr 
stoutly protested. 

^^No, sir, I won't. We got none too much 
time together, seein' as how yore Uncle Daniel 
has got his mind set on your goin' back to Lele 
Motu, though what in Time he needs you for 
through the rainy season, 'cept for company 
mebbe, I don't figger. Thet's selfish talk, 
seein' as thet's the main reason I want ye. Of 
course he’s your legal guardeen, but then yore 
my legal pardner an' part owner of the 
schooner. 

^T'm goin' to have a long talk with yore Un- 
cle Dan'l, Jim," he went on, ''thet is, if you 
have no objection after we talk it over first. 


The Widow's Mite 


183 

The tradin’ game is nigh played out at this end 
of the Pacific, ’specially since the war. New 
conditions, new big companies formin’ with 
reg’lar steamer service an’ big capital back of 
’em. I ain’t as young as I used to be, but I 
ain’t outgrown a longin’ of mine and a hunch 
of mine to cruise over Papua way, British 
New Guinea, and see what we can pick up. 
There’s copra there and pearls and shell and 
trepang, same as they is here, but there’s gold 
too, and birds-of -paradise in the d’Entrecas- 
teaux — the gold’s mainly in the Louisiades — 
there’s ebony and sandalwood and a lot of wild 
rubber. Pve kind of had my eye on thet rub- 
ber proposition for some time. 

‘'Now, if yore uncle’ll let you go, how about 
it, Jim? How about you an’ me takin’ the 
Manuwai an’ tryin’ our luck over theta way?” 

‘Tt sounds fine to me,” said Jim. And it did. 
Birds-of-paradise and gold, to say nothing of 
sandalwood and ebony and rubber, sounded 
like a fairy combination of romance and reality. 
Such sort of cargoes used to come to Tyre and 


184 Ji'yyt Morse, South Sea Trader 

Sidon in the days when Solomon was building 
his temple and the Queen of Sheba peacocked 
it down the great hall. Sandalwood and gold 
and — or was it peacocks and apes and ivory 
that came to Tyre, he wondered, before he put 
his question. 

^‘Any ivory in New Guinea, Captain Burr?’’ 

‘'Never saw any, unless it might be alliga- 
tor’s teeth; they’s ’gators in ’most all the 
cricks an’ rivers.” 

This sounded even better, yet Jim shook his 
head dolefully. 

“Uncle Daniel won’t give his consent. I 
suppose I ought to have it, though I’m sixteen.” 

“I may coax him over,” said the skipper, 
but he spoke noncommittally. Daniel Morse 
could, he knew, be cranky on occasions and it 
galled him a little to know that his nephew was 
taken up and into partnership by Burr, who 
had never offered him the privilege. That was 
why he had sent by mail to Tahiti, recalling 
Jim to Lele Motu before the rains com- 
menced. 


The Widozv's Mite 


185 

There was not much sign of rain in sky or 
sea at present, though the monsoon changes 
were due, and unsettled and stormy weather 
might be expected at any time. 

The Manuwai sailed on closehauled to the 
light breeze. Captain Burr ceased to talk, his 
pipe went out, his one eye closed in sleep as he 
lolled, and a snore brought him to, all-standing, 
to look half apologetically at Jim before he 
announced his intention of taking forty or 
fifty winks. Jim kept his mind agitated with 
thoughts of New Guinea and arguments that 
might be brought to bear upon his Uncle Dan- 
iel. He was aware that Daniel Morse had 
hailed his nephew's arrival from California 
with a doubt in the welcome that only dimin- 
ished when he found that Jim was capable of 
handling the natives on Lele Motu and doing 
most of the work that Morse had formerly 
accomplished. Jim had been willing enough, 
but his keen young brain saw very clearly that 
the leisure thus gained by his uncle was not 
doing the latter any good. The white man in 


1 86 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

the tropics must ever keep his body and his 
physical cravings controlled by the will of an 
active brain, and Daniel Morse was not doing 
this. He slept most of his time, got careless 
of his habits, even his personal cleanliness, and 
he drank a great deal more than his limited 
energies could carry off. He was deteriorat- 
ing, and, when a white man starts down grade 
in such latitudes, the return is difficult. 

^^There may be a beachcomber or so come 
back,’' once said Captain Burr, ^'but I never 
saw one that did, and I’ve seen a heap of sand 
bums in my day.” So that Papua with vigor- 
ous, kindly Captain Burr was vastly more at- 
tractive to Jim than the prospect of Lele Motu 
with Daniel Morse, relation or no relation. 

Still day-dreaming, he became conscious of 
an odor coming on the breeze, that aroused 
early recollections. At first he could not place 
these; he was only aware that -the smell was 
far from being the spicy scent of bush flowers 
and sweet-leaved growths. The reek of it 
filled his nostrils and actually seemed to clog 


The Widow's Mite 187; 

them. It stuck to the roof of his mouth, 
nauseating, persistent, strengthening and less- 
ening in degree with the puffs of wind. Jim 
wrinkled nose and lips and envied the sleeping 
kanakas and the skipper; he envied the Ad- 
miral, and he remembered a story of the man 
on a survey party who awoke in a cabin to 
find himself the only man awake and a scared 
skunk under his bunk. 

^'Just my luck,^’ said Jim whimsically and 
half aloud. ^'It smells like the fish-glue fac- 
tory in South San Francisco. I bet it's a dead 
whale to windward, between us and the islands. 
Gee, I wonder if we’ll find any ambergris? 
There ought to be some reward for standing 
this stink. And we’re heading right up for 
it, too.” 

It was quite a temptation to awaken some- 
body to share his misery, but Jim stuck it out 
until the parrot stirred, unreefed his head from 
a wing and cocked a bright, protesting and ac- 
cusing eye on Jim, as one who might be con- 
sidered responsible for the offense that had en- 


i88 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

tered his brain by way of his nostrils. Sud- 
denly the bird stretched, flapped its clipped 
wings and shrieked. 

''Look out, look out, ye lubbers, the galley s 
caught ahreT 

Jim laughed at the Admiral's aptness, pro- 
voked by some ancient association, and the 
skipper came on deck, alert, snufflng. 

“Some one rotting-out," he said. 

Jim knew what he meant, the custom of al- 
lowing pearl shells to rot in the sun so that 
the meat could be stripped easily by washing 
from the mother-of-pearl nacre of the inner 
shells, for the ready location of what actual 
pearls might be present. It was his first ac- 
tual experience of contact with the operation. 

“I thought it was a dead whale," he said. 

“Dead whale? A dead whale is Otter of 
Roses compared with rotting shell," said the 
skipper. “If the breeze was steadier, you'd 
know what I mean. We'll sheer off a bit, 
Jim, and get to wind'ard of the stink soon as 
we can. I wonder who's pearling on the Mata- 


The Widow's Mite 189 

bais?^’ He looked over the rail to where the 
palm tops showed in two wide apart clusters, 
with their stems now attached and plainly vis- 
ible, seeming to be wading through the sea to 
meet the schooner. 

''The one to stabboard is Tiatau,” said the 
skipper. "Judson quit there two season ago. 
Cleaned-out the lagoon. No one but a crazy 
man’d tackle Tiatau for three to five years from 
now. It’s a cinch thet Judson didn’t leave any 
gleanin’s. The one to port is Tiau, Jean La- 
farge’s holding. ’Course it might come from 
Tauiti, jDUt thet’s ten mile off — By Ginger 
. . . !” 

He swung on Jim and his one orb was filled 
with a light, that, coupled with the set of his 
features,#he tilt of his jaws beneath his beard, 
Jim recognized as meaning some sort of action. 

"We’ll head off, so’s to come down wind to 
Tiau,” he said. "Breeze is freshenin’ a bit. 
I’m goin’ to hold up for a while afore we tack, 
so’s to make certain. I’ll take the wheel a 
spell.” 


1 90 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

^'Certain of what?’^ ventured Jim, after he 
had watched the skipper’s grim features for a 
while, wondering what had brought about the 
change. Captain Burr seemed to have come 
back to the deck of the Manuwai from a long 
way off, the grip of his gnarled hands on the 
spokes relaxed but his face was still stern as 
he spoke. 

''Wal, ril tell ye, Jim. I think some one’s 
rottin’ shell out on Tiau. Pritty soon I’ll be 
certain. If they are, you an’ me’s goin’ to 
hold way up to wind’ard, as I said, an’ come 
down on Tiau from the west. I know the 
place, and they ain’t goin’ to be liable to see us. 
The island slopes up like a wedge of cheese 
lyin’ on its side with steep cliffs to the west. 
It’s a nasty landin’ there, but we can make it 
in the boat. 

^^Now, Tiau belongs to Jean Lafarge. He 
bought it from Old King Tamatau, and the 
French Government recognized the sale an’ 
deed as O. K. an’ proper. Jean found pearls 
on it from the start, an’ it looked, one way and 


The Widow's Mite 


191 

another, as if he was goin’ to be lucky. For 
one thing, he marries pretty Lucy Lenoir over 
on Mitabele, and the two goes to live on Tiau. 
Then the war comes along an’ Jean he’s no 
more fiery to go and fight for France than Lucy 
is to have him go. So he goes and he never 
comes back. Lucy gets a letter and one of 
them war crosses, and, after a while, she went 
back with her little kiddy to live with Pierre 
Lenoir on Mitabele. She’s there yet. I know 
thet for certain. Pierre Lenoir he’s old and 
he ain’t over lucky and they’re sailin’ pritty 
close to the line an’ poorly victualed. 

‘Tt may be thet someone authorized by Lucy 
is working the lagoon on Tiau for La- 
farge’s widow. Mebbe they ain’t authorized. 
Knowin’ what I do about the gen’ral circum- 
stances, I figger they ain’t. Anyway we’ll take 
a look-see. An’, if they’s someone poaching, 
I figger you an’ me ain’t goin’ to sail by an’ 
watch the widow and kiddy of a man, who died 
tryin’ to haul his lieutenant out of a shell-hole, 
robbed blind. I was too old to do my bit and 


192 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

you was too young, but mebbe here’s our 
chance after the war’s all over. How about 
it, Jim?” 

Jim’s eyes were shining and a little moist. 
He didn’t have to answer audibly. The skip- 
per nodded and went on, 

‘They call me a one-eyed old pirate once in 
a while,” he said. “In the old days, when it 
was a free race down to any pearl prospect, 
when rules was scarce and government super- 
vision scarcer, I took my chances with the rest 
of ’em. Pearl poachers, they used to call us, 
but, if we poached, it was agin’ the govern- 
ment. You never knew for sure jest what 
government it was, anyway. But a poacher 
who’d steal a widow’s mite like this, the widow 
of a fightin’ man like Lafarge, is a derned sea- 
skunk and he ought to be strung up to a cocoa- 
palm. They’s men hangin’ around Tahiti 
who’d do it though, as we know. They may 
be in force, and they’ll put up a fight, if they 
suspect us of nosin’ in. Jest the same, we’ll 
do a little spyin’ in the enemy’s trenches. The 


The Widow's Mite 


193 


smeirs from Tiau all right. We’ll land, and 
ril spin a yarn about bein’ jest in from my 
tradin’ cruise an’ needin’ fresh water. We’ll 
lower the tanks in case they take us up. Main 
thing is to see who they are. You an’ me’ll 
split the scoutin’ party. I’ll do the palavering, 
if we run into any of ’em, as we’re bound to 
do, I reckon, an’ you can snoop around and 
take a mind photograph of the rest. If they’re 
poachin’, they’re prob’ly doin’ it on their own, 
without kanakas. Prob’ly five or six whites. 
Kanakas are apt to talk too much. 


CHAPTER Xy 


THE PEARL POACHERS 

Captain Burr let the schooner fall off until 
the still strengthening breeze came abaft the 
beam, and they went reaching off to the west- 
ward until the palms of Tiau were almost out 
of sight. Then they tacked and came criss- 
crossing back. As the skipper had said, the 
western cliffs of Tiau rose high and steep 
without sign of barrier reef, the breakers 
spouting at the base of the laval walls. The 
whaleboat was lowered and they rowed cau- 
tiously in to land the skipper and Jim in a tiny 
cove where they were forced to jump ashore 
to slippery rocks, as a wave lifted, and then 
climb up a rift in the cliffs towards the top. 
The schooner hung off and on in a limited 
sentry-go and the whaleboat waited for them 
as, armed with hidden automatics, they made 
their way to the summit. The cliffs them- 


194 


The Pearl Poachers 195 

selves were bare of any growth, but from the 
top to the eastern rim, the land was bush cov- 
ered, big trees thrusting up through the under- 
growth, with here and there a grove of coco- 
palms lightening the greenery. 

Jim saw how good was the skipper’s simile 
of ^^a wedge of cheese lying on its side.” The 
cliffs formed the high, outer rind of the wedge 
and the ground sloped down to the beach 
gradually. The cheese had been deeply bitten 
into by the lagoon that lay green as an emerald 
beneath them, barred off from the blue depths 
by a line of creaming surf. They were to 
windward of the smell now and it did not 
bother them. Captain Burr gazed carefully 
down, scanning particularly the lonely stretch 
of lagoon. 

''Shell’s on the beach,” he said. "They must 
have cleaned the lagoon nigh out, and now 
they’re waitin’ for the stuff to rot before they 
make a clean up. Meantime, they’re loafin’ 
’round drinking or playin’ poker for their 
shares, or what they’ve already picked out of 


196 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

thet mess. Probability is they’ve made two or 
three jobs of the shell, their kind ain’t content 
to wait too long before they see what they’ve 
got. They wouldn’t want to waste work, 
which they jest natcherally hate, on a lot of 
shell thet wasn’t rich, or didn’t make a showin’ 
from the start. They figger they ain’t likely 
to be disturbed, seein’ thet Judson ain’t on his 
holding. But they forgot the far-reaching of 
that stench. 

^There’s poor Lafarge’s hut, down there, in 
a clearin’ you can’t see from here. His wife 
made quite a garden there. You can see the 
smoke, if you look close.” 

Jim saw a thread of whitish gray smoke, 
like a strand of gray wool, showing by some 
cocoa-palms. Then the two struck into the 
bush, striking a little-used trail after a bit and 
traveling rapidly downwards. At last they 
came to the edge of the clearing, sadly neg- 
lected and overgrown with the still neat-looking 
little grass-thatched bungalow in the center. 

The smoke came out of a stove-pipe thrust 


The Pearl Poachers 


197 


through the roof of a lean-to kitchen. They 
caught glimpses of some one busy in the shed, 
the walls of which were made of palm-thatch 
sadly in need of repair. 

‘T’m goin’ to work my way round in front,’' 
said Captain Burr. ‘We want to get a good 
line on these chaps. Too many odds against 
fightin’ ’em, and we can’t prove positive they 
ain’t got a lessee's right, till we get back in 
touch with Lafarge’s widow. They’re layin’ 
up in the house, an’ we might stick around 
twenty-four hours before they came out. Jim, 
you mosey through thet garden and see who 
you can spot round the back. Be prepared to 
swear to ’em in case, if we find out they’re 
crooked and they’ve vamosed before we get 
back with the Commissioner, we can identify 
’em when they show up at Tahiti to make a 
sale. Thet’s where they’re sure to land — al- 
most certain, thet is. You keep in thet tangle 
of sugar-cane, and you can get close up. Then 
you work your way back to’ards the boat. 
I’ll be cornin’ right along.” 


198 Jim Mo 7 'se, South Sea Trader 

It seemed a mite hazardous to Jim, but he 
knew that the skipper did not plan lightly and 
knew far more of human nature as exemplified 
by such characters than he did. He watched 
the captain, snake quietly off, for all his bulk, 
to make the circuit of the clearing, and crept 
himself through the sharp-bladed, rank cane. 

Just as he worked to within twenty feet of 
the lean-to, he saw the man who was acting as 
cook make an inspection of a pot on the stove, 
close down its lid and go through a door into 
the main house. Swiftly, he darted across the 
space and stood close to the boards of the 
house, edging up to a window that was open 
with its sill about the level of his shoulder. 
He heard the mingling voices of several men, 
a rough lot, to judge by their accent and mis- 
choice of words. One voice struck him as 
slightly familiar. 

^When’s thet stew goin’ to be ready, Jake?^’ 
asked one. 

'' ’Bout thirty minnits. Who’s bin playin’ 
my hand V 


The Pearl Poachers 199 

one. ’T won’t do you no good to sit 
down, Jake, Jerry’s got all the luck. He’s won 
prit nigh ev’ry pearl, seed an’ baroque in the 
outfit.” 

'There’s more in the beach pile,” said an- 
other. "We sure struck a rich patch this trip.” 

"Heap of good it does us, when Jerry here 
corrals it all.” 

"I won it fair, didn’t I? It warn’t me pro- 
posed cards ennyway. Hey, they’s some one 
outside . . .!” 

Jim could hear the scrape of seats set back 
and the scuff of feet on the floor. Then the 
skipper’s voice hailing, 

"Shack ahoy! Any one to home? My 
water tanks are low. Like to get some fresh 
water and drinkin’ nuts from you fellows.” 

Quite audibly, the men in the room were 
crowding towards the entrance. Jim told by 
the access of light in the open window above 
him that a door had been opened. He inched 
up and peered over the sill. All the men had 
their backs to him, and, without exception. 


200 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

they were going out of the door. One turned 
his face sideways for a moment, as he shifted 
a pistol holster from buttock to hip, and Jim 
caught in his breath. As he recognized the 
voice, now he remembered the face. It was 
one of the gang that had kidnapped him and 
tried to get the position of the Miter Island 
and the wreck of the lost galleon from him. 
He knew that the gang had been chased by 
the Commissioner’s fast launch and had run 
their sloop ashore and scattered in the bush of 
an island whence only three were captured. 
The man had been called Jerry, he recollected 
that, and he knew that these men were not apt 
to be lessees of this island and the hero La- 
ferge’s pearl patch. Besides, they had 
reached for their guns as men whose con- 
sciences were uneasy at surprise. 

Jerry did not see him. He was the last out 
and he shut the door behind him. The reason 
for that move was plain to Jim’s eyes. 

A rough table was littered with cards, with 
poker chips, with squarefaced bottles and 


The Pearl Poachers 201 

chipped cups and glasses, but there was one 
place where shone a pile of softly gleaming 
gems, a small fortune in pearls, even to Jim’s 
unexpert eyes. These were the stakes that 
Jerry had won, the pearls from Lafarge’s 
patch, the widow’s mite, belonging to her and 
to the ''kiddy.” For lack of these the widow, 
her child and father were "sailin’ close to the 
wind and short on victualing.” With the hope 
of pearls like these in his dulling brain, Lafarge 
might have died the more easily, thinking his 
family provided for. 

Jim clutched the sill, pulled himself up, 
hitched a leg across the sill and was in the 
room, hardly conscious of thought in the action. 
Gun in one hand, stealing softly in his sneaker 
shoes across the floor, he gathered up the iri- 
descent heap and transferred them to the breast 
pocket of his shirt. Then he slipped out of 
the window and to the ground again, ready to 
help to cover the skipper, if Jerry should recog- 
nize him and resent and guess the reason for 
his presence. 


202 Jim Morse^ South Sea Trader 

But he was too late. The skipper’s one eye 
had betrayed him. 

''Water?” cried Jerry. "I wouldn’t give 
you a drop of water, if you was burnin’ in hell- 
fire! You git — ” 

There was a bit of a scuffle, and Jim darted 
into the bush for the front. Some vines 
twisted about him and held him for an instant. 
Then he knew that the skipper was still un- 
harmed. 

"Why, shiver my garboard strake, if it ain’t 
one of the quinine hunters 1” said Captain 
Burr. The rest guffawed, swift to laugh at 
the comrade who had won their shares. The 
papers’ account of Jim’s quick-wittedness at 
turning the tables on the kidnappers had made 
the affair a standing jest in the Lower Archi- 
pelago. 

"I sure wouldn’t have asked you for water 
if I’d known who was here,” went on the skip- 
per, jovially enough. "And I ain’t needin’ any 
more quinine than I got aboard my schooner. 


The Pearl Poachers 203 

I reckon I can get along, folks, though Tm just 
in from my long cruise.’' 

'‘You let go of me,” snarled Jerry. Jim 
peered through the thick leaves, disentangling 
himself from the vines, his automatic covering 
the group. Two of the men grasped the furi- 
ous Jerry, whose coarse face was purple with 
rage, preventing him from drawing his gun. 
“Let go of me, and I’ll fill him full of lead, 
the spyin’ hound!” 

“Now don’t you go to shootin’,” said the 
skipper easily. “For two can play at that 
game, and I ain’t often known to miss, my one 
eye bein’ special trained for pistol-work. Be- 
sides, my schooner’s right handy, and, if I 
didn’t show up, there might be a whole peck 
of trouble turned loose. As I said, if I’d 
known my druggist friend was here I wouldn’t 
have dropped in. As it is. I’ll bid you all 
good day.” 

He backed off slowly towards the bush, the 
men still restraining Jerry. There were five 


204 Morse, South Sea Trader 

of them all told, a villainous looking crew, all 
with guns at their belts though they were alone 
on the island and had not anticipated callers of 
any sort. Four of them seemed relieved to 
get rid of the skipper so easily. Only Jerry 
continued to curse and struggle. He broke 
loose, as the captain took the thick bush, and 
fired a shot. Jim’s own pistol spat and the 
bullet hit Jerry’s forearm. He dropped his 
weapon and clasped at his wound, the blood 
spreading through his fingers. 

^'Served you derned well right,” said one of 
the men, callously. ''You had no call to shoot 
at him. Want to queer the whole deal?” It 
was apparent that Jerry was none too well- 
liked by his fellows, apparent also that they 
figured that the shot had come from the rap- 
idly dodging skipper, who now joined Jim and 
broke with him through the cane back to the 
trail by which they had come. 

"A bad lot, and we’re lucky to get clear,” 
he said, as they hurried along. "I’ll know 
them again. Did you spot your man?” 


The Pearl Poachers 205 

^‘The one in the kitchen? Yes/’ said Jim. 
''Also Quinine Jerry. And I hooked all the 
pearls on the table.” 

The skipper stopped. 

"You did? Then here’s where we double 
our speed. They’ll take Jerry Quinine back 
into the house and they’ll be after us. They’ll 
take one look for our schooner outside the la- 
goon, and then they’ll tumble and they’ll be 
after us like a shark after mullet. Come on.” 

A shout proved the truth of his reasoning. 
It was followed by another. Jim and the skip- 
per raced along the trail. Jim could have 
gone faster with his handicap of youth and 
lightness, but the pace began to lag as the 
sweating, panting skipper labored up the steep 
slope. Once they paused while Captain Burr 
stood trying to get his second wind. 

"I ain’t as young as I used to be, Jim,” he 
smiled, with his face awry. "Got a stitch in 
my side. Better now. Come on.” 

They got to the end of the trail and clam- 
bered towards the rift. A shout showed that 


2 o 6 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

they were sighted and there was the crack of 
a gun and the warning buzz of a bullet above 
and between them. 

'Thet's a rifle/' said the skipper. “But 
weVe beat 'em to it." 

They plunged down the declivity, careless of 
their going, hailing the waiting whaleboat that 
rowed in to meet them. A wave lifted and the 
skipper lunged oif the rock, landing lightly 
enough on the bottom-boards and grasping the 
steering oar as Jim leaped dov/n beside him. 

“Put your backs into it," cried Captain Burr. 
“Pull the linings out of you !" 

The oars bent to the sturdy strokes and the 
whaleboat shot off for the schooner that hung 
in the wind, awaiting them. The skipper’s 
bare head smoked from the heat his race had 
engendered, but, like Jim, he was exultant. 
Jim, looking backwards, saw two figures ap- 
pear on the cliffs. Another joined them. 
One knelt, aiming carefully. The rifle 
cracked, and the skipper gave a groan and 
slumped forward, releasing the steering-oar. 


The Pearl Poachers 207 

Jim caught it before it went overside. They 
were close up to the schooner now, and Jim 
called to the kanakas to row around to the 
farther side, sheltered from the fire. Another 
bullet had come skimming the sea, perilously 
close. 

The skipper straightened up. His tanned 
face was pale, but his eye was still bright. 

^'Through the back, high up,’’ he said. 
^Think it’s gone plumb through the shoulder- 
blade. Might have touched the top of the 
lung. Nothin’ serious, Jim. A lay up’ll cure 
it before we make Tahiti. And we got the 
pearls.” 

They got him aboard and in his bunk, the 
schooner coming about and heading north for 
Tahiti. Jim was relieved to see the skipper 
rally after he had had a little whiskey. The 
bullet had taken a strange course. The bone 
had deflected its downward course and it had 
come out just above his right collar bone. 

''You take charge, Jim,” he said. "You 
know the course, nor’-east by east, straight as 


2 o 8 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

you can sail. Get out the chart. There’s a 
shoal I marked there last season. It’s a new 
one, not down on the reg’lar charts. Sub- 
marine shock chucked it to the surface, I fancy, 
for I’ve sailed clean over the place heaps of 
times. Better give it a wide berth. It’s about 
twelve miles from here, fetch it in about two 
hours, ’long to’ards dark. And don’t worry 
none about me. The bullet’s out, and I’ve 
weathered worse squalls than this. Bless ye, 
Jim, I’m tattooed with souvenirs. Rest is 
what I need till we fetch alongside the wharf. 
Then I’ll have the doc’ fix me up. Let me 
look at the pearls.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


A STERN CHASE 

Jim went on deck. The sun was slanting 
down fast in the west. The island showed up 
sharp against the sky. He knew little of 
surgery, but the skipper’s color had come back 
and he did not feel much real alarm. The 
shot was high up, and Captain Burr was tough. 

He laughed as he heard the Admiral, sensing 
some trouble, yell, 

''Never say die, my bully boy. Never say 
dieN And he felt still better as he heard the 
skipper’s low laugh in answer. 

Then a call from one of the crew made him 
look aft. Stealing out from behind the island 
came a sloop. Jim frowned as he saw how 
fast it sailed, and, semi-professional as he was, 
noted the fine lines of the vessel and its big 
spread of mainsail. The boom was well over 
209 


210 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

the stern, the boat was heeling to the wind and 
about the bows showed spurts of spray. There 
was no question but what she sailed faster than 
the Manuwai for all the latter’s superior spread 
of canvas. The Manuwai needed overhauling 
and a scraping. The swift-growing tropical 
growths on her keel made her drag behind her 
best speed. Captain Burr had planned to have 
her out on the marine railroad at Tahiti after 
the season closed and leave her in fresh water 
during the rainy months. 

Jim decided not to call the skipper. To keep 
him on his back in the bunk was the best thing 
now that the wound had been washed and 
bandaged and the bleeding had stopped. He 
looked at the sun again. It was barely two 
hours to the brief tropic twilight, and then 
night. There was no moon. While they had 
been on the island, the wind had shifted and 
changed both in force and quality. It 
brought now a promise of wet weather and 
clouds were already gathering in scudding 
squadrons. It would be a dark night. 


A Stern Chase 


2II 


The sloop came up fast. Jim figured it was 
sailing three knots to their two, or even better 
than that. Once within rifle shot, the men, 
now desperate at the loss of their pearls and 
the prospect of being hunted down as poachers 
under the lately revised laws, severe in penal- 
ties, would fire and that they could aim 
straight Jim was very sure. 

Two hours to twilight. The reef! The 
submarine quake shoal ! He had marked it on 
the chart, dead ahead on their course. If 
.? 

Within a few minutes he had the schooner's 
handyman, Billi, working on a triangle of light 
spars attached to a raft of heavier timber, a 
lantern slung from the tripod. 

Clouds were all over the sky now, and the 
sun was sinking in a glory of purple, crimson 
and orange. Light had faded from the pur- 
suing sloop's sail, and it showed dark, ominous 
as a shark's fin, gaining — gaining. The dark- 
ness sifted down ahead of time and Jim slipped 
below. A few drops of rain fell. He lit the 


212 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

lamp in the main cabin, then lowered it, seeing 
the skipper peacefully asleep in his own tiny 
stateroom bunk. Then he went aft to where 
the traderoom had been built with the stern 
windows to light it and there he also lit a lamp. 

‘Tf only they don’t think we’re too easy,” 
he thought. ‘^But they know the skipper’s 
wounded and they’ll figure on me not remem- 
bering the light. Anyway, it’s a chance and 
it’ll give us another chance to give them the 
slip in the dark.” 

It was practically dark, when he went on 
deck again. Billi pointed out the sloop, so 
close Jim wondered why they did not fire, 
though in that light a hit on a man would have 
been almost a miracle. But it was a long way 
to Tahiti, and, if the sloop was still in sight 
of them by dawn, the next day could see them 
easily overhauled. 

He sent a boy into the bows to cast the lead. 
It shot down repeatedly to twenty fathoms 
without trouble, but Jim knew they must be 
close up to the shoal. He had the whale-boat 


A Stern Chase 


213 


launched, the improvised buoy set into it, a line 
attached, with the boat's painter, ready to cast 
off, hitched to a cleat. 

It was quite black now, save for the streaks 
of phosphorescence in the water, and Jim, with 
four rowers, prepared to get into the boat. 
First, Jim took a glimpse through the night 
glasses and saw the sloop still coming on churn- 
ing through the seas that were getting short 
and vicious. He called Billi, who was to steer, 
to light the lantern hanging from the tripod 
and covered it with the coat that he flung down. 
He went below and extinguished all the lights 
with one quick peek in to where the skipper 
still rested quietly. The Admiral muttered 
something drowsily as Jim hurried on deck 
and called to Billi to take the screen from the 
lantern and place the tripod and raft in the 
water. 

He gave explicit instructions to the man at 
the wheel. He was to steer due west, keeping 
a close course and steering well up. After 
one round of the clock he was to come about 


214 Jiyyi Morse, South Sea Trader 

and retrace the tack. After two hours to run 
a light up to the main truck. Two hours, Jim 
figured, should see success or failure. Either 
he could find the shoal and decoy the sloop on 
its jagged points or the sloop would keep its 
course without noting the schooner’s change. 
At least he hoped for one of these two events 
to happen. The risk was that the sloop might 
see their manoeuver through the binoculars, 
but the spattering rain, that commenced to fall 
as they left the schooner and rowed off towards 
the mid-ocean reef, reduced that to a minimum. 
They towed the raft, and Jim kept them at a 
good stroke. He could see nothing of the 
sloop, now, through the rain. But he felt sure 
they could see his light, dancing along gal- 
lantly like a will-o’-the-wisp. 

Captain Burr woke up with a very stiff 
shoulder and a very dry throat. He called for 
Jim, and the Admiral answered him, 

''Never say die, bully boy, never say dieT 

“No one’s saying 'die,’ you son of a sea- 


A Stern Chase 


215 

swab/’ roared the skipper. Outside of his 
shoulder and throat he was feeling fit. ^^Oh, 
Jim!” 

His door opened and Jim appeared, looking 
very clear-eyed, flushed beneath his tan. 

''I slept like the dead,” said the skipper, ''but 
I waked up alive. Have we got a cool nut 
aboard, Jim?” 

Billi brought the nut, and the skipper drained 
the natural cup of its refreshing contents be- 
fore he asked about the weather, the course 
and the log record. 

"You sure made a good haul for the Widow 
Lafarge, Jim,” he said. "I only hope those 
hounds don’t tumble and clean up the rest of 
the shell in a hurry. They’ll know we’re after 
them now.” 

"I don’t know if we’ll get them,” said Jim, 
"but I’ve a notion we’ll get the pearls.” 

The skipper looked at his dancing eyes 
knowingly. 

"What’s in the wind now?” he asked. 
"You’ve been up to something!” 


2 i 6 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

And Jim told him. 

must have been within a mile of the 
shoal/’ he said. ‘The sloop was close' up, 
trailing the light and we had to pull hard. I 
was in the bows of the whaleboat throwing the 
lead and pretty soon I got bottom at ten fathom, 
then five and I knew we were over a part of 
the shoal. Then it shallowed to two and the 
oars churned up seafire all about us. If it 
hadn’t been raining, the sloop might have 
caught on. But there was our light going 
ahead and they were catching up fast. We 
kept on till we were in a fathom and the break- 
ers were beginning to make. Then I tied on 
the whaleboat’s kedge to our booby trap and 
anchored the light. We rowed off to one side 
and on came the sloop. I could see the glow of 
her skylight on her sail. She ran on hard, 
rising and shivering with the sail flapping, all 
aback, bows lifting. We could hear them run- 
ning about and cursing. They lowered sail, 
but they were fast, with the sea making. 

“We rowed around for a while, and, pres- 


A Stern Chase 


217 


ently, saw the light in the maintop of the 
schooner. The sloop had taken a slant to one 
side. There was a nasty squall all night and 
we had to reef. That’ s all.” 

^^All!” said the skipper. And all’s 

enough. Wait till I tell the Widow Lafarge 
that’s 'air you did. 

‘‘Son, I’m proud of you! You took a risk, 
rowing off in the dark like that, but thet’s what 
makes a man, the risks he takes, not the safe- 
ties he plays. Soon’s we get to Tahiti, and be- 
fore they patch me up, we’ll send the govern- 
ment folk out after Jerry Quinine and Com- 
pany, or what’s left of ’em on that shoal, an’ 
you an’ me ’ll go back and clean up the rest of 
the widow’s mite. I’ve got a hunch she can 
use it.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE MANUWAI STRIKES A GALE 

Captain Burr’s face was grave as he watched 
the barometer in the cabin of the Manuwai, 
The mercury was going through the perform- 
ance known to navigators as ^^pumping/’ with 
fluctuations back and forth of a twentieth of a 
a degree. The skipper carried both mercurial 
and aneroid instruments, the first to correct the 
latter by comparison. And the pointer of the 
aneroid was decidedly tremulous, as if regis- 
tering the variations of an uncertain and fever- 
ish pulse, represented by the atmospheric pres- 
sure. 

Jim watched him, thinking that even human 
senses were capable of noting the unusual con- 
ditions of the air. It was warm, muggy, 
heavy and without motion. The sea reflected 
the general mood of the weather. The waves 
218 


The Manuwai Strikes a Gale 219 

moved sluggishly, lacking all aeration, with 
dulled crests, seeming to crawl rather than, as 
usual, to be instinct with life. It was the color 
of over-used dishwater, only more greasy, so 
that Jim almost expected it to leave a line of 
scum along the schooner’s run. 

They floated in a dead calm under a sky that 
had a brassy tinge and was largely depleted of 
visibility, furnishing a gray twilight that, al- 
though it was close to noon, made a lamp in the 
cabin both cheerful and necessary. The dome 
of the heavens appeared to have lowered. To 
Jim’s quick imagination it suggested the con- 
cave side of a vast bowl of metal with one 
bossy spot, slightly burnished, where the sun 
struggled to assert itself. Breathing was la- 
borious work, the lungs seemed incapable of 
getting enough oxygen to drive the body’s en- 
gines. The whole atmosphere made for in- 
ertia, for mental depression. The kanakas 
showed this most plainly, gathered in a mute 
group, save for Billi at the useless wheel, their 
eyes rolling uneasily to sea and sky, itchy with 


220 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

the prickly warmth, convinced that the gods 
were angry and that catastrophe was imminent. 

Even the Admiral resented conditions, alter- 
nately moping or fiercely plucking at an ag- 
gravating feather, perhaps wishing, in his 
parrot’s mind, that he had been born without 
plumage or could dispense with it on such oc- 
casion, like a cloak. 

Joshua Humdinger of a gale brewin’, 
Jim,” said the skipper, turning away from his 
barometer inspection. ^'It’s goin’ to blow hard 
enough before sundown to skin a flyin’-fish — 
a hundred miles an’ better. I ain’t worryin’ 
so much about us. We’ve got plenty of sea 
room and the Manuwai has bucked some hard 
blows before this. She’s built right, is our 
schooner. I attended to that. Went up to 
Trisco myself to Butler’s yard and picked 
every oak knee and rib that went in her, be- 
fore I sailed her down to Tahiti. She ain’t 
spoonbowed or overhung at the stern, but she’s 
staunch. We’ll hang to it with a sea-anchor 
long’s we can, and then we’ll jest natcherally 


The Manuwai Strikes a Gale 221 

scud before it, like a scootin’ duck with Number 
Twelve shot trimming his tail feathers.” 

‘‘How long before it breaks, Captain?” 
asked Jim. “And you said you weren’t wor- 
rying so much about us. But you are worry- 
ing about something. What is it?” 

“Thet’s two questions to once, Jim. As for 
the first, they’s no tellin’. We’ll git one 
warnin’. Thet ’ll be the advance scout of the 
storm, cornin’ from any which quarter. Wind 
— mebbe rain. Then nothin’ — practically a 
vacuum. Then, a blow thet would have made 
the whale seasick, let alone Jonah. We’ll go 
on deck and git ready. Strip down and rig 
the sea-anchor. Question the second’s easy 
answered. Who’s a sailor always sorry for in 
a storm? Why, the folks ashore with no place 
to run before the wind.” 

As he followed the skipper on deck, Jim felt 
that the latter had somehow evaded his ques- 
tion. But there was plenty to do. It was 
darker. A sooty veil of brown was lifting all 
around the rim of the sea. And, out of the 


222 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

vault of that metallic sky, there sounded a low 
but distinct moaning, exactly like the sound 
that comes from the hollow of a shell. The 
skipper noticed him listening. 

'Tryin’ to make up its mind where to start 
in,’’ he said. 'When it’s decided, you’ll hear 
from it again. We got to get all the canvas 
close-reefed and under double-gaskets, Jim. 
Suppose you boss thet job, while I get after the 
sea-anchor. We’ll get a storm- jib an’ a storm 
trysail ready to set, if we get a chance to use 
’em. Double-lash the boats, Jim, an’ we’ll 
gen’ally clear the decks for action.” 

For many minutes the schooner bubbled with 
activity, and then all was done that could be 
done and still the storm menaced and did not 
strike. The skipper went below for a look at 
his barometers. Jim realized the loneliness of 
the scene, the bare masts, the reduced horizon, 
the sea without break or play or spout of fish, 
a rare occurrence in such waters, not a wing in 
the heavy air. Fish and birds had gone some- 
where to cover. 


The Manuwai Strikes a Gale 223 

Suddenly, wind blew out of nowhere, struck 
the schooner a slanting blow on her starboard 
bow that set her aback like a balky horse, 
shrilled through the standing rigging with a 
flurry of rain and was gone again. 

^^WarninV’ said the skipper. ^^Now we’re 
fairly certain which way it’ll strike and it suits 
us to a T. It’ll drive us on our course, an’ 
nothin’ but deep water between us and Lele 
Motu.” 

His voice sounded unusually clear. As he 
lit a match for his pipe, Jim saw the little flame 
unwavering, straight and still till the skipper’s 
breath sucked it down into the bowl, as if it 
had been a painted scrap of wood. 

^Xast chance to smoke on deck for a while,” 
said the captain. ''Ah!” 

Out of the southeast where the Trade is 
born, so often fickle in the Lower Archipelago, 
came a low sigh that mounted to a roar like the 
blast that rises and grows in a steam whistle. 
Only a hundred times greater. Captain Burr 
pointed to where a line of dirty white came rac- 


224 Morse, South Sea Trader 

ing towards them. Jim watched the fierce 
wind whip the sullen, logy waves into yeasty 
pyramids, spindrift flecked his cheek as they 
hove overboard the sea-anchor, a stoutly- 
lashed-together arrangement like a floating 
platform and fended it off from the first onset 
of the seas, running ahead of the wind and 
threatening to use the anchor as a battering 
ram. 

Then the wind hit the schooner, shrieking 
through the rigging, bowing the topmasts like 
whips, driving booming, drumming seas at her 
bows, as, indignant, she sprang back to the full 
length of the anchor cable and headed to the 
storm. Spume blew in horizontal lines, sight 
was wiped out and hearing, speech, impossible. 
The deck remained fairly steady but aslant 
from aft. All clung to life lines that the cap- 
tain had ordered rigged, and the tempest threat- 
ened to tear their feet loose and leave them 
streaming. 

Jim had never conceived of such a gale. 
Once in a while he caught sight of a welter of 


The Manuwai Strikes a Gale 225 

ocean. The sky was no longer visible. The 
whimsy struck him that they were in the center 
of one great ''howl.’' Then he saw the skip- 
per working his way forward, carrying an axe 
and beckoning to some of the crew. Jim, bare- 
footed, clinging to the lines, followed. Words 
were impossible. The skipper pointed to the 
storm jib, a rag of stout fourteen-ounce can- 
vas, reinforced in each angle to sustain the 
tug of halyard, sheet, downhaul and chafe of 
stay. Billi took this in charge, telling off his 
boys by gestures to their duties. 

The bows were low down now, the seas com- 
ing aboard by the bowsprit that constantly 
speared great masses of foam and tawny water. 
It seemed as if the bitts would be pulled out of 
the deck. Then, Jim caught the gleam of the 
skipper’s axe severing the cable of the sea 
anchor, and saw him hurrying aft again to 
help the man left at the wheel. Up went the 
tiny jib, flapping furiously. The wheel spun, 
the schooner heeled, obeying twist of helm and 
the urge of the little sail, then seemed to spin 


226 Jim Morse j South Sea Trader 

on midkeel, and they were flying before the 
gale that sped the seas after them like a pack 
of hounds that bayed and howled and frothed 
in their ravening. 

The jib held. Billows rose threatening be- 
hind the counter, sank, lifted the Manuwai with 
resounding blows that made her shiver through 
all the stout timbers that the skipper had chosen 
so carefully. Storm ports had been closed 
over the trade-room windows in the stern and 
Jim appointed himself to go down and see if 
they were holding. The schooner now stag- 
gered, pitched about like a medicine ball 
by the seas that appeared to run at random, at- 
tacking both quarters, tearing at the flanks of 
the ship that defied them. Jim was pitched off 
his feet on to transom cushions and clawed his 
way aft while suspended clothes, the lamp, 
everything, gimbaled or hooked, swung madly. 
The Admiral was clinging to the bars of his 
tumultuous cage, beak open, seemingly scream- 
ing, though even his raucous voice could not 
pierce the terrific racket. 


The Manuwai Strikes a Gale 227 

The trade-room was dark to blackness but 
Jim struggled to the windows of heavy glass 
and found their inner shutters fast screwed. 
Below, it felt and sounded as if the schooner 
was momentarily plunging to the bottom of the 
sea. An overtaking sea would smash down 
on the decks and Jim could feel the gallant ves- 
sel shudder, stiffen, seem to stand still and then 
go pitching, wallowing on. 

If he was going to be drowned, he decided, 
he would be drowned in company, and he went 
up on deck again. Billi was with the skipper 
at the wheel, two drenched but stalwart figures 
standing with legs far apart, held by lashings 
to the helm, now the most exposed spot on deck. 
Jim managed to hitch forward and got at last 
under the lee of the cabin skylight where three 
kanakas huddled, their brown skins pinched 
and bluish, their teeth chattering more in ter- 
ror than with chill. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


JIM, A LIFE SAVER 

Hour after hour went by and still they were 
driven, with the storm unabated. And then 
Jim began to sense short periods where the 
wind faltered. Presently there were distinct 
lulls, though, even in these, he fancied the wind 
and sea far greater than he had ever before ex- 
perienced. A sickly gleam showed in the west 
where the low sun struggled to rend the clouds. 
A bellow from aft managed to assert itself and 
they set the storm-trysail between the main and 
fore. That sail, too, held and the Manuwai 
went leaping on, its deck at every angle inside 
of a minute, lofty seas flinging cisternfuls of 
water over her, as the wind sheared off their 
crests. But the gale was plainly broken. The 
stirred up ocean would rage long after the wind 
died but the end was in sight and Jim, between 

228 


229 


Jim, a Life Saver 

the squalls, began to wonder how far they had 
traveled. And how fast. Surely no ocean- 
liner ever made better time, or, for that mat- 
ter, better weather than the Manuwaif Jim 
was proud of her, proud of her builder, proud 
of the captain who had selected her seasoned 
timbers and who sailed her, prouder yet of be- 
ing a part owner. He could never again 
think of the schooner as a thing inanimate, she 
had seemed so sentient in the storm. 

Yet, for a while at least, he must leave her, 
for they were on their way back to Lele Motu, 
to where his Uncle Daniel expected him to stay 
through the dreary rains, already ushered in 
in earnest by this storm. The Manuwai was 
laden with stores for all those months of the 
southern winter, for Lele Motu and the neigh- 
boring isles for which Lele Motu was the clear- 
ing house of trade and supply. 

They were late now. Daniel Morse, never 
too cordial of late, would be surly and little in- 
clined to grant a favor. And Jim longed to 
sail across the vast Pacific with the skipper to 


230 Jim Morse j South Sea Trader 

New Guinea and start in trading with him in 
new, strange places, as Captain Burr had sug- 
gested. Now his uncle would be churlish, and 
Jim dreaded what the effect of the long, lonely 
months would be upon Morse’s habits, already 
tending towards solitary drinking between long 
intervals of sleep and drowsy lounging. 

But this might not be helped, and he 
shrugged it off. The baffled gale, furious at 
not being able to compass the destruction of 
this man-made thing, flung a last savage on- 
slaught of wave and wind that sent the 
schooner sliddering down a frightful valley 
of water and staggering up the opposite hill, 
only to be hit at, from port and starboard, with 
the stunning blows of a practised, savage 
fighter. Jim, looking aft, saw something 
vividly green appear above the companion 
hatch that must have been opened by Billi, for 
he saw the skipper alone at the wheel and 
Billi’s head showing over the peak of the sky- 
light. 

All this in one glimpse as the green object 


Jim, a Life Saver 231 

came forward like a ball, smashed into the 
halyards, hung there for the space of one pite- 
ous squawk and then was torn away by a sec- 
ondary gust. It was the Admiral ! 

And Jim was after him, unthinking but not 
unreasoning, for he somehow cut the marlin 
lashings of a halyard coil and fastened the 
line about his waist, before he leaped after that 
pitiful scrap of green and yellow and scarlet, 
beating the water with outspread wings, a fleck 
on the shoulder of a spouting billow. 

The schooner shot ahead, and Jim brought 
up with a jerk at the end of his line, threaten- 
ing to sever him as it cut into the muscles of his 
stomach. But he had clutched the Admiral; 
he held that bunch of limp bedraggled fowl to 
his chest with one hand, while with the other he 
strove to ease the pull on the halyard. And, 
with the last of its strength, the parrot strove to 
help the hold with feeble beak and claws, grip- 
ping at Jim’s wet shirt. 

They lifted on a crest, and Jim saw a brown, 
almost naked figure dive from the taffrail and 


232 Jim Morse j South Sea Trader 

come down towards him, guided by the line, as 
Jim knew by the tugs that plucked him under. 
Then a strong arm was about him, a cheery 
voice rang in his ears, the voice of Billi, at 
home even in those battering seas, Billi with 
a stouter hawser and a lifebelt that he besought 
Jim to slip about him. 

‘^This not cut so much. You gimme manu/' 
said Billi, hanging on to the hawser, 
perfectly at ease. ''Bimeby one time wind stop 
lele while schooner she come about.’’ 

Even as Billi spoke Jim saw the Manuwai 
swinging to the wind, bows on to them. Some 
one had run forward with the other end of 
their hawser. Others joined him. The 
schooner stuck her nose close into the wind, 
clinging there by virtue of her two storm sails 
and the skipper’s grip on the spokes, almost 
stationary as the seas swashed them down to- 
wards her and the kanakas hauled in the slack. 

Jim hung on to the Admiral while eager 
hands got him aboard, Billi swarming up the 
rope like an ape. The schooner swung off 


Jim, a Life Saver 233 

again, and Jim was carried below, buffeted, 
sore and spent, but safe and triumphant. 

Captain Burr turned over the wheel and 
came down to the cabin, his face anxious. 

‘Tm all right, sir,’' said Jim, trying to get 
up. ''But the Admiral’s all in.” 

"You son of a gun,” said the skipper, trying 
to look angry and not succeeding. "Don’t you 
know enough not to leave the ship without 
leave? Mate, too! A fine example! Rank 
mutiny, I call it. Let’s see the bird.” 

The Admiral lay beside Jim, apparently at 
his last gasp. The skipper picked him up 
tenderly, laid him, back up, in the horny palm 
of his left hand and examined him. Then he 
got a bottle from a rack, and, sitting down by 
Jim, forced open the Admiral’s beak and 
dropped into it some whisky. The Admiral’s 
gray tongue protruded stiffly, then it moved, 
waggled and the liquor went down. His 
soaked shoulders hitched convulsively, and his 
claws, drawn up stiffly, limbered out. Finally, 
he rolled up his eyelids, looked at them both, 


234 Morse, South Sea Trader 

closed his eyes and emitted a little cluck of 
satisfaction. 

“Wrap him up in a dry shirt, if you can find 
one, and he’ll be as right as a trivet,” said the 
skipper. “He may have a headache, but 
thet’s a sight better than a belly full of salt 
water. Jim, lad, you shouldn’t have risked it, 
even for the Admiral. I could get along with- 
out the Admiral, but not without you, Jim, not 
for keeps. And, after this, if you attempt to 
take leave without permission. I’ll — I’ll put you 
in irons and slam you in the brig, shiver my 
garboard strake, if I don’t!” 

A faint voice echoed his. 

''Never say die, bully boyN 

The skipper slapped his leg. 

“That ain’t a bird, Jim, don’t tell me. I’ll 
bet he’s the transmigrated soul of Captain 
Kidd, thet’s what he is. Long life to him ! I 
heard a general smash below, and I sent Billi 
down to look-see, bein’ thet things was moder- 
atin’ a bit, spite of that last wallop we got. I 
feared for the old bird, and, sure enough, the 


Jim, a Life Saver 235 

cage was off the hook, the door bust wide open 
and him scared plumb foolish, scared so hard 
he dodged Billi and flops and flaps up on deck 
where the wind caught him more like one 
feather than a full-grown, fed-up, painted Poll- 
parrot ! 

'^Gale’s busted, Jim, an’ we must be halfway 
to Lele Motu. Coin’ to be a glory of a sunset 
after all.” 

Jim, rocked in the cradle of the deep, slept 
sound that night and well into the next day. 
Billi came down and lomi-lomi'd (massaged) 
the stiffness all out of him, so that he went on 
deck by noon. No vestige of the gale re- 
mained. The sea ran ultramarine beneath a 
sky of sapphire, flecked with clouds that shone 
like the inside of an oyster shell. A frigate 
bird soared and dolphin played. 

‘^But this is ’bout the end of fine weather,” 
said Captain Burr. 'Trob’ly won’t get an- 
other storm like thet in a hurry, but lots of 
dirty weather and rain. I’m wonderin’ what 
the wind did to Lele Motu. Traveled in a 


236 Jim Morse j South Sea Trader 

circle, most likely, and may have touched up 
the group. If so, we’ll find your Uncle Dah’l 
in his cyclone cellar.” 

'‘Cyclone cellar? I never saw one on Lele 
Motu.” The skipper laughed. 

“Your uncle calls it that. It’s just a cave 
in the rocks. Not much to look at. He men- 
tioned it once to me as a likely place to hide if 
a bad gale caught ’em.” 

The next day at noon Jim compared his 
reckoning with the skipper’s, as usual, and 
found their Sumner’s lines corresponded and 
the position showed Lele Motu due to appear 
above the ^till clear horizon. But no palms 
lifted, and Jim began to fuss. But the skip- 
per only grinned. 

“Wait a bit,” he said. “We ain’t lost yet.” 

Two hours later he called Jim to him and 
handed him the binoculars, pointing out the di- 
rection. Jim looked hard and long, fussing 
with the focus. 


Jim, a Life Saver 2^,7 

''Why, what’s happened?” he asked at last. 
"What’s happened to Lele Motu?” 

"What’s liable to happen to any island in 
these seas at this time of year and later,” said 
the skipper. "Your Uncle Dan’l has used his 
cyclone cellar. I’ll bet a new suit of sails. 
And his copra crop’s goin’ to be short for a 
year or two. I shouldn’t wonder,” he 
chuckled, "if Dan’l Morse ain’t plumb dis- 
gusted with the South Seas. He’s been kind 
of restless ever since he got his share out of 
the Tia Rau pearls. Mebbe he’ll let you trail 
along of me, after all.” 

Jim’s face shone. The skipper had then 
had some foundation for his hopes. Morse 
had hated to give up Lele Motu, while it was 
a source of income, but Jim could read clearly 
now in the present light that his uncle had be- 
come dissatisfied of late. 

It did not take long after they arrived to 
find out the correctness of the guess. Lele 
Motu had been stripped by the circling storm. 
Coco-palms had been snapped ofiE short as 


238 Jim Morse, South Sea Trader 

stubble, the bush trees were uprooted or shat- 
tered, the scrub growth a straggling tangle 
and the copra shed and trading shack were 
matchwood scattered along beach and reef. 
But for the cave Morse and his kanakas would 
have had a hard time of it. 

'^Blown clean out of business,’’ said Daniel 
Morse. ^^I’m plumb disgusted, Burr. Got a 
good mind to go back to God’s Country. I 
ain’t ever rode in an automobile or an aero- 
plane, or seen a moving picture, even. I ain’t 
been away from this dump of mine, even to 
Tahiti for fifteen years, and now ^dump’ is the 
right word for it. If you want it, Jim, I’ll 
make you a present of it.” 

The skipper winked at Jim. 

'Why don’t you go up to the coast, Dan’l?” 
he suggested. "Do you good. Replant your 
coco-palms, and, when you get ready to come 
back — for you will — there’ll be a fresh crop 
of nuts waitin’ for you. Don’t you worry none 
about Jim. I’ll take him along with me and 
glad to. We’ll take you and your boys to Ta- 


Jim, a Life Saver 239 

hiti, after weVe seen what’s happened to the 
other islands close by and then you can take the 
steamer. Jim an’ me won’t charge you passage 
neither, will we, Jim?” 

‘^Captain?” asked Jim later, after all things 
were arranged. ''How much of a trip is it 
to New Guinea?” 

"Tahiti to Port Moresby? Call it thirty- 
five hundred miles and you come pretty close to 
it. Some trip, it’ll be, eh Jim?” 

"I’ll say so. Say, skipper, I wonder what 
the Admiral will think of Birds of Paradise?” 

"Wal, he’s got one advantage, whatever he 
does think, he can tell ’em, soon’s he learns the 
lingo.” 


THE END 


* 


I . 


i 



\ 


I 




/ 


a 










* 



< 


j) 


s 



N 




5V 


I 


>- 


•• j 


i 


\ 


» 


I 

I, 



:i J 





















i 


r 


1 


f 







t 



i 



} ■ 



s 


\ 


I 


* 









I 


f } 

t 







. I 


i 


t 


I 


I 


/ 





4 < 













. V A 


t * 



* ^ A ^ ” Ift 


.V) 


rY 


>. V, •.' A%,i . 

» •* • -i ” « 

« *1 ■> ._jj’. y« 



a :- 






I ‘ 


% 


•T, 


(VS 


*♦ t 


• ■*. » 


'•■ yJ 


A . S* 



. ;?n 

, - r- ' • 

I -*; . .' »' 

r 


’’V 



• • • •^. 




rt . 


s\ ( J 





I’’L " 


.01 


* Ia' 


I ' • _ 

■■I'lt'a'.l, ■ 1 , 


. « 


r* 


7 -i 4 



j ' 


' 'i - H , , ‘■' 


t . » 


■'.jilLi " .i.' ,).■"” iv -rf 

' Ai . ;i-r ■:>' iitti; 
•: ■ h-: : 


V a'J 








J' 


' ' j 


i. ■' KU:^ •■:/T3|r/;.1|r;frit,fm 


T\ ' »v 


’ *i 

«* * 

■ % 

, . i, ■».rw^ - 

', .f » 

* 

iJt * 


• > . . 


A I 







• V 




. ■.■■ .1 


»• ■ 


^\'-A *'* -i* '' 





I • 


' < 


t / 


• < 




4 


^ I 


4 ^ 


.1 


I i 




I • 


I 


V'i 

' >.4 


• • « 


* • 



V < 


•i 


*ai 


♦ 


•I ■ 



t'r 












tP 


i. 


••1 


V' 


4 t • 


’ . i ‘ ; 


r. 


I 4 


jgif 


ki 


4 ■•• 






f < 






■'V‘.v'"-lr 

V 'V^y* 


. ?■ 


> > 


<>' ( 






t 'J 


A " V- 

.V'/ '■ 1 r 


.V 




• _ i 


V 


i^- 


» . I 


« 'k: 




[I 




'ksM^ 















